A Seat at the Table with Saverio & Emily
Take a seat at the table with Saverio and Emily Cataldo, the owners of Saverio's Pizza in Massapequa, NY. Each episode they break bread with guests from all over Long Island including fellow restaurant owners, entrepreneurs, and customers.
Saverio's Website: https://www.saveriospizza.com
An RJ Media original podcast (https://www.rjmediastudios.com)
A Seat at the Table with Saverio & Emily
Setting the Table
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It started with a pork store and a family that knew how to feed people. In this pilot episode, Emily and Sam sit down to tell the real story: how they met in 1983, how Sam left a Teamsters job to join Emily's father's pork store, and how on January 23rd, 2015, they opened the doors to Saverio's with no menu, no boxes, and no idea what they were doing. They sold 66 pizzas that first night. Pull up a chair.
Saverio's Authentic Pizza Napoletana
929 N Broadway, North Massapequa, NY 11758
Podcast produced by RJ Media www.rjmediastudios.com
Hi everybody, I'm Emily Cataldo and welcome to a seat at the table with Severio and Emily. I'm one of the owners here at Severio's Pizza and AS Pork Store, and this is our pilot episode of this podcast. We hope you enjoy it. And tonight we're talking with my better half, Severio. Hello.
SPEAKER_00How is everyone?
SPEAKER_01I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00Me too.
SPEAKER_01This is pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_00This is gonna be good.
SPEAKER_01It is gonna be good.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01I'm all I'm excited to do this podcast. You know, we've been talking about this for so long that we wanted to get our feet wet and do some podcasts. And you know, now's the time. And everyone's like, how do you find the time to do all this stuff? So my answer to them is you know what? This is what you do when you have a small business and you want to get the word out there that we're here, and you know, it's it's a great product and a great experience, and we're very proud to be owners. Yes, we are.
SPEAKER_00We are.
SPEAKER_01So, what do you uh where do you want to start? You want to start about with uh how we started the pork store? How we met? Oh, how we met.
SPEAKER_00We're going way back. We could see how we met first. Okay. And we met in 1983. I asked my wife on a date. She couldn't refuse. Look at this, how could you refuse? And she said, sure. Yeah, we went on a date together, her and I, in 1983. And from there it's history.
SPEAKER_01It's been a long time. We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary last summer. We renewed our vows with our beautiful family. We have four children and nine grandchildren, and everyone was there with our best friends, our dearest family friends and family. It was an amazing day, and uh you know, a great love story that started when we were kids. Oh God, a long time ago. Um, but then it became it became more of um how do I say transitioned from just being us as a husband and wife to Sam becoming a partner in the family business, which, like everybody knows, family businesses could be a little difficult at times, especially when you have a boss as stern as my dad. But you know, coming from the old Italian town in Sant'Angelo de Lombardi, he had struggles, they had nothing, they came from legit poverty, um, and then came to America for a better life. And you know, he kind of set the bar really high. Yeah. And, you know, as a young man, I know it wasn't easy for you.
SPEAKER_00No, it wasn't easy at all. But you know what? If it wasn't really for him, I wouldn't have the worth epic that I have right now. Okay. He really, really like instilled in us, you know, you want to be successful, you have to work. There's no taking it easy.
SPEAKER_01And you know, thank God for him. Yeah, you want a good life, you gotta work for it. Nothing is just given to us.
SPEAKER_00Nobody gave us anything. No, we worked. All all I was giving was an opportunity to do something.
SPEAKER_01And talking about that opportunity, like my dad, like I said, came in 1960. You know, 1960 came to the States. He didn't know the language, he was an immigrant from Italy. Um, he was very fortunate to meet a right group of Italian immigrants that were here already before he came in 1960. Uh, Mr. Shicatano, Anthony Shicatano, ANS, and Carlos Salzarulo, and Zia Maria, who taught my dad how to make mozzarella. This woman was a petite Italian lady, and she taught all the Italian men and the AS pork store people how to make it mozzarella. So, with that, he got the opportunity, the same way you got an opportunity, to have a chance to have the American dream. And it was a lot of work. And he worked in Brooklyn in an Italian community in Brooklyn, and I have an UX. He worked with Joey Paolillo. Joey, yeah. And you know, he got his feet wet in the pork store business, and then Mr. Shicatano gave him the opportunity to become a partner here in 1967, which uh, you know, we're celebrating a lot of years on this corner. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this business.
SPEAKER_00You know, and also, you know, when he opened up here in 1967, there was nobody else here. Right. That was the beauty of the business.
SPEAKER_01It was only that.
SPEAKER_00He was the only game in town. Right. And you know what? This place flourished.
SPEAKER_01I know. It it was um a line down the block from the Sid Ellen Sausage, the Staples.
SPEAKER_00The police were here, keeping the crowd under control outside. It was it was good. It was good. I wish those days were still. I know. But unfortunately. But we're holding our own, you know. I mean, it's tough for the little guys.
SPEAKER_01You know, the big box stores and the uncles and brothers, you know, they put their uh they put their uh hands in the pot and stir things up, but you know, we're still here. After all these years, we're very lucky we have a strong community that is so devoted and loyal to us because we take care of them. Well, yeah, really good customers. We really do. Our customers are amazing. And you're so good. The boys behind the counter, they're so good to the people.
SPEAKER_00They know what how they want their cold cuts, they know how they want their chickens. Hands the bags around, we bring the bags around for them. We give them a kiss, thank you so much. Right.
SPEAKER_01Nobody does that. Nobody does that. And we're lucky. I mean, how many generations are here shopping?
SPEAKER_00Four.
SPEAKER_01Four generations of like the we have Caroline.
SPEAKER_00Caroline's family. My favorite lady probably in the whole stores, Caroline. Yeah. Caroline's daughters, Caroline's daughter's children. Right. And Caroline's daughter's children's children come in here.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing. Four generations. That's amazing. And there's a bunch of families like that that we've seen multiple generations of. 90, I believe she's 97. She celebrated the 97th birthday. Yes, the daughter came and told us that yes. She's an amazing lady. Yeah. So it's it's we're very blessed. We we really are truly blessed to be here. Um, it's a lot of hard work. Sam has had years of dedication to the family business, and that's what made us so successful with his hard work. And now Joseph works the attention.
SPEAKER_00You know what though? Like I always say this, and I always know what I'm gonna say, but an old man came in here one day and he told me that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And that's true. And that is the truth. And you live by that. I love what I do. I wouldn't change this for anything. I love what I do. I love getting up in the morning. You know that. I do. I never once said to you, oh shit, I gotta go to work again. Never, never. Very fortunate. Never, never. I love what I do. I love coming in here. Our first date was when I went to my cousin's home and I said to my cousin, Who is that girl in the picture there? And she said, That's my friend. I said, Oh, I said, I'd love to meet her. And she said to me, That's her friend Emily. I said, Can you give her a call? I'd love to speak to her. So I gave you a call that night. You did. And you said to me, I said you like go on a date, and you told me you couldn't go. I couldn't. Because you had a date with somebody.
SPEAKER_01I did.
SPEAKER_00And all I did was tell you, give them a call, tell them you can't make it. And you said you couldn't call them. And I said, okay, give me his number, I'll call them for you, and I'll cancel the date for you.
SPEAKER_01Well, am I glad that I went on the date with you instead? So that led to a lifetime of uh a lot of happiness. A lot of happiness. Yes, it did.
SPEAKER_00And you know And then like your then later on meeting your dad, right? I had a nice job, a really good job actually in Manhattan. I was working for the Teamsters, and your dad had asked me, he was having a little problem in the store with a kid behind the counter weren't doing the right thing, and he asked me if I would like to work in the store. I remember that. I tried it, and like I said, I'm I loved it. I loved it so much, I really never looked back.
SPEAKER_01And you had no regrets of leaving your teamster job?
SPEAKER_00No, not at all. I would have had something like that. But in here you had no pension, right? It's your private business, but I want to change it for the world. And like I have always told you, I've always told you, you know, I've always said it. The man came in, like I said, and said to me, you know, my friend, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And that is one of the truest days I've ever heard. It is true. Because I love what I do. Yeah. I don't wake up in the morning ever and say, oh boy, I gotta go to work today. Nah.
SPEAKER_01And that's how I feel too when we um, you know, we branched out many, many years into the business. You know, it was now we fast forward to so many years to 2015, you know, when we opened up Severios. Um, it was probably the hardest year of our life. We had such a blessing of our granddaughter being born, and then we had the tragic loss of mom passing away, and we were just in shambles. And I feel like having the store sort of gave me a reason to get out of bed and get to work and try to get this business off the ground. Even when I felt like crawling in my bed and crying every day, I it gave me a purpose to be here to start something together, husband and wife, husband and wife team, and build this from the ground up. We literally had no menus, no boxes, no idea what the hell we were doing. Do you remember day one?
SPEAKER_00Oh, do I remember day one?
SPEAKER_01Day one of Severio's was January 23rd, 2015.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01And we opened the door and we said, All right, today's the day. Like we didn't have a hesitant.
SPEAKER_00A customer came in and said to me, Can I get a pizza? I remember, oh man, Roberta. I know. And I said, nah, and I said, okay, I'm making the pizza. From that moment on, it was nonstop day.
SPEAKER_01It was the funniest thing because I remember you make the pizza, and I'm like, I guess I'll make a box. So I went and got a box and I made the box and I put it on the end, and you know, we didn't even have pricing. We didn't even know what the hell we were doing. It was funny. And we uh gave the guy his pizza and he loved it. How much do you want to try? I said, uh $10,000. We had no menu, no boxes. And then the next person came in and ordered a pizza. I made a box, got him a dough, and he made a pizza.
SPEAKER_00Now don't forget, we only had enough, we only had enough sauce to make a couple of pies. It was one bowl. Pies, 10 pies. And next thing you know, the first night we sold 66 pizza. And I remember putting mozzarella, making mozzarella, and putting hot mozzarella. We had no idea what that was doing. Oh my god, what are we doing here? It's a miracle people came back. And we really didn't know what that was. Oh, it was a it was very funny. It was funny.
SPEAKER_01Day two, we sold 102 pies. So at that point, I figured I better make a couple of boxes. Maybe I made 10 boxes at a time. Like we didn't, we weren't pizza people, we were food people, but we weren't pizza people. So we had to learn how to be pizza people together. And then a little at a time we got the hang of it. We printed a menu, we uh hired some staff. One girl comes in, she says, Hi, are you hiring?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes, go in the back and get an apron, you're hired. Today. Today's got in the back and Christy.
SPEAKER_01She was great. She was great. She was a big help. And then we hired, you know, local kids, and it's that's the blessing of being in a small community because the high school kids come in for pizza and you get the name and number, and some of the greatest kids came through these doors. Joe Bronco, I wish I still had the paper in the register. Joe Osterley, nice kid. Nice kid, Plain Edge High School, his phone number. And I had that in the register for the longest time. And uh, all the kids that come here to work, they just become part of the family, which is so great.
SPEAKER_00Everybody here.
SPEAKER_01Everyone here is awesome. We're so blessed. We really are. We are. It's it's been an amazing experience to um have the pork store. And the beauty of it is all the product that you make, like the mozzarella you make in-house for all these years, it's so good. And that's what goes on to the pizza. So that gives us a little niche.
SPEAKER_00Nobody makes mozzarella like us. No. Nobody, nobody in Long Island makes mozzarella like AMS pork store message.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's the beauty of the whole philosophy of what we did here was kind of connecting the pork store into the pizza side and making it one beautiful family-run business.
SPEAKER_00The meatballs that we make over here, we use on the pizza pie. On our meatball pie. The eggplant that we have here, we use on our pizza pie. Exactly. Everything's super fresh. That makes a difference. Everything is fresh.
SPEAKER_01In my opinion, I feel like people come here because they know like everything is so fresh every day. Christian is amazing in the kitchen, right? Every morning when I'm walking in, that's what I do. I grab two pieces of eggplant and keep walking. That's my breakfast. Every afternoon when he's making meatballs, I'm like, oh, that's my lunch. I grab a hot meatball. So I feel like we're so blessed with the staff, the product, the food is so fresh, and I think the community has like really gotten accustomed to being so high quality, fresh ingredients and service with a smile.
SPEAKER_00We've tried our best to keep the prices as low as we can. Right. You know, when we first started, you know, making pizza, a case of tomatoes was $17, $18. The same case of tomatoes is $38. Yeah, it was gonna get a point too about the cost. Flour was $23. Now it's $48 a bag. We never doubled our price. No. We increase it a dollar or two. Right. But that's really we try our best to keep the prices down. And you know what? Make it affordable, affordable for people to come in with their family.
SPEAKER_01With the family, that's what I'm just gonna say. And eat with us. Like that's the thing. Like our original philosophy, like when we originally said we're gonna do a little pizza shop, like we never really called it a pizzeria. We never really wanted to use the word pizzeria.
SPEAKER_00Your dad didn't want that. Your dad said, no, don't call it a pizza room.
SPEAKER_01We always called it a little pizza room, or we called it I didn't even know there was a pizza room, we we we called it the pizza pizza. And um, but the whole philosophy of that was to get families around our table and give the local families a place where kids are welcome, and they could have a a healthy, healthier meal than you know, the fast foods. Absolutely. And you know, give them good quality at a reasonable price, and our tables would be filled with families, and we love that. And we're so lucky that what we really envisioned came to fruition.
SPEAKER_00All you hear is I walked in there, I felt like family. Right. I I walked in there, they treated me like I was one of their own. It makes sense. It makes a big difference to make feel welcome.
SPEAKER_01Like even the lady that came tonight, that nice lady for the pastor and meetup. Yeah, she was so nice. She was a nice lady. She was so sweet. Like I feel like I knew her forever. So nice.
