Transcript: Agostino Crotti (1951- ) and Anna Crotti (1954- )

Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of interviews with Agostino Crotti and Anna Crotti on November 3, 2024. The interview was recorded at Tommaso’s Ristorante Italiano at 1042 Kearny Street in San Francisco, California. The interview was conducted and transcribed by John Doxey, manager of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project.

Format: Originally recorded on a Canon XA11 camcorder. Duration is approximately 35 minutes.

Attribution: This interview transcript is property of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers. Quotes, reproductions and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Agostino Crotti and Anna Crotti, November 3, 2024, Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project.

Summary: The THD Oral History Project caught up with Agostino Crotti and his wife Anna Crotti on the eve of their departure from Tommaso’s Ristorante Italiano, the beloved North Beach institution the Crotti family has owned and operated since 1973. Restaurant work is notoriously taxing, and after running Tommaso’s for 51 years – where 13-hour workdays are the norm – Agostino and Anna said they’re ready to retire and spend more time in their native Lombardy. Since no family members are available to take over the business, the Crottis have passed the baton to Maureen "Mo" Donegan, a veteran restauranteur who has vowed to keep Tommaso’s current employees and continue the restaurant’s menu and traditions. Tommaso’s re-opened under Maureen’s ownership (after a break for the holidays) in January 2025. This interview with Agostino and Anna was recorded on a weekend afternoon as staff prepared for the restaurant’s evening opening, in the front lobby as far as we could get from the humming refrigerators and crackling ice machines.

Notes: Agostino and Anna have been part of a dynamic trio – Agostino’s sister Carmen Crotti has been part of the ownership group since the beginning. Carmen was unavailable to participate in this November 2024 interview as she was ill with the flu. This is unfortunate, as Carmen has some great stories to tell – such as tales of the raucous all-night card games that for many years took place on Sunday nights at Tommaso’s after the restaurant closed. Tommaso’s has traditionally been open six days a week and closed on Mondays.

Tommaso’s will celebrate its 90th year in 2025. The original Neapolitan restaurant at 1042 Kearny Street was called Lupo’s, opened by the Cantalupo family in 1935. Lupo’s featured what is believed to be the first wood-fired brick oven on the West Coast, and helped popularize pizza in an era when it was still uncommon in America. In 1971, the Cantalupo family sold the restaurant to its long-time chef, Tommy Chin, who renamed the restaurant Tommaso’s, after the Italian version of his name. Two years later, Chin sold Tommaso's to Agostino Crotti, a 22-year-old Caffe Trieste barista who had emigrated from Italy to San Francisco with his family in 1969. Although the Crottis hail from the Lombardy region – famous for its rich cuisine featuring widespread use of pork, dairy products and egg-based preparations – they opted to keep the tomato sauce- and garlic-heavy Neapolitan recipes in place, which Agostino says was “a very, very smart move.”

In this interview, Agostino and Anna speak of their hometowns near Lake Como in Lombardy; Agostino’s emigration to San Francisco in 1969 with his parents, grandmother and three siblings when he was 18 years old; his experience as an altar boy to Pope Paul VI from 1963-1969, and the culture shock of moving from Vatican City to the “red light district” of North Beach, with its topless joints and porn shops; the family’s quick adjustment to San Francisco life, including Agostino’s early jobs at Caesar’s Italian Restaurant and Caffe Trieste, and his sister Carmen’s enrollment at Lowell High School; serving cappuccinos to Francis Ford Coppola at Caffe Trieste while he was writing “The Godfather” script; the history of Lupo’s, which was founded by the Cantalupo family in 1935 and apparently had the first brick oven on the West Coast; the stars of stage and screen who flocked to Lupo’s when they were in town – including Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Bette Davis and the Marx Brothers – in part because it was near Broadway clubs they liked; how the Cantalupos paid the artist who painted the restaurant’s Neapolitan murals with spaghetti and meatballs; how Alice Waters sent a bricklayer to Tommaso’s in the early ‘70s to get design specs for the wood-fired oven when she was preparing to open Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley; purchasing the restaurant from Tommy Chin, aka Tommaso, in 1973; purchasing the building from Henry Chung in 1984, because Henry needed money to buy a larger space for his expanding Hunan Restaurant; the 1981 article in People magazine that named Tommaso’s as one the top pizzas in America and spurred even greater popularity and lines; friendships with Francis Ford Coppola, Jerry Brown, Phil Kaufman and other notable regulars; Herb Caen’s plugs for Tommaso’s in his Chronicle column; the collapse of the 1042 Kearny Street building in the 1906 earthquake and how it was rebuilt with the original bricks; their readiness to retire after 51 years of running the restaurant, so they can spend more time in Anna’s home town of Mese, where her family owns a winery, runs a Michelin-mentioned restaurant and recently recent purchased a convent building from the Vatican; Carmen’s plans to spend more time with her children and grandchildren in the Bay Area; the new owner Maureen Donegan’s plans to keep Tommaso’s mostly as it is; the fact that neither their son nor Carmen’s daughter are interested in taking over the business and keeping it in the family; the fact that Tommaso’s experienced only one break-in during the past 51 years, and that the place was frequented and perhaps “protected” by both policemen and neighborhood organized crime figures; Agostino’s collection of movie posters displayed on the restaurant’s walls, and his role as a chef in “Hemingway and Gellhorn;” the ways regular customers and takeout business helped save Tommaso’s during the covid pandemic lockdown.

Agostino and Anna Crotti have had opportunities to review the transcript and have made corrections and emendations. The reader should keep in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.

Interview

JOHN: This is John Doxey of the THD Oral History Project. It's November 3, 2024, and I'm sitting with Agostino Crotti and Anna Crotti…

ANNA: That’s correct.

JOHN: … long-time owners of Tommaso’s restaurant, 1042 Kearny Street. And I just wanted to start off by … getting a little bit of your background. You were both born, I think, nearby each other in northern Italy...

ANNA: That’s correct.

JOHN: What's the name of the town?

AGOSTINO: I was born in a town called Mazzo di Valtellina. It's a small town north of Lake Como, very close to the Swiss border. She's from another valley nearby. We are about an hour and 15 minutes apart. Of course, if you have an helicopter, you go through the mountains and it takes 10 minutes. And we met here in 1976. But I came with my family. It was the seven of us. We emigrated together in June of 1969. And my father wanted to come since the ‘50s, but because of the immigration laws and the restrictions, you know, we had to wait a long time. And finally in 1969 we were able to come, and we started a new life.

JOHN: The name of the town is Mese?

AGOSTINO: Mese for her, yes. [Transcriber’s note: Mese is a comune in the Province of Sondrio in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 90 kilometers north of Milan and about 40 kilometers northwest of Sondrio.]

ANNA: Mese.

AGOSTINO: And then Mazzo for me. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, Mazzo di Valtellina is a comune in the Province of Sondrio in Lombardy, located about 120 kilometres northeast of Milan.]

JOHN: And the nearest big town is…?

AGOSTINO: Sondrio is the main province. But it's not too, too far from Como. And the [unintelligible], of course. Milano’s the biggest city, farther south, but it’s not too far. The area is called Lombardy.

JOHN: And you came at what age? You were 18?

AGOSTINO: I was 18 years old, yes.

ANNA: I was 27 when we got married.

JOHN: And did you come here with your family as well?

ANNA: No. Just by myself.

JOHN: You did? And let me ask what drew you to San Francisco?

ANNA: Agostino. [laughter]

JOHN: Agostino? You knew each other already?

ANNA: No. I met him here in the city. [Transcriber’s note: Carmen explained that she introduced Anna and Agostino in Italy in 1976. An intercontinental relationship continued for several years until Anna and Agostino married in 1981, and Anna moved to San Francisco in 1981 and began working at Tommaso's.]

JOHN: Oh, OK, OK. Well, you [Agostino] came with your family, right?

AGOSTINO: That's right.

JOHN: Multigenerational I think, right?

AGOSTINO: Well, actually it was the three siblings. And my parents, of course. And grandma, too. So the seven of us, we immigrated together, yes.

JOHN: And what was the reason to come to San Francisco, instead of another American city?

AGOSTINO: Oh well, the reason that … first of all, my father wanted to come, like I said, since the ‘50s, but we had to wait. My uncle and my aunt they were born in Argentina, so they were able to come earlier. And then when aunt got married to an American citizen five years later, she was able to call my father. But like I said, we had to wait. But his dream was to get together with his brother and sister and reunite the family here. So what he did, he sold his business in Italy, and then he came here finally in 1969. And, like I said, we started a new life here. Two weeks after we arrived, I was the first one in the family to go to work. I ended up at Caesar’s Restaurant on Bay and Powell. I was a busboy there for six months. And that's how I got acquainted, so to say, with the restaurant business. And then I ended up at the cafe [Caffe Trieste] up the street, two blocks from here on Vallejo and Grant. And I was there for three years. And during that period I was able to make the connection with Tommaso’s. That was Lupo’s before. And… [Transcriber’s notes: Caesar's Italian Restaurant closed in 2012 after 56 years in business. The restaurant was located on Bay Street at Powell.;  Opened in 1956, Caffe Trieste was the first espresso-based coffeehouse on the West Coast. The neighborhood icon is located at the corner of Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street.]

JOHN: Do you have some stories from your time at Trieste?

AGOSTINO: Well, you have to realize that, you know, I was fresh from Italy. And not just from Italy. I came from the Vatican. This is my true, true claim to fame, so to speak. I was an altar boy for Pope Paul VI from 1963 to 1969. And … so you have to remember the shock of coming from a place like I was for six years, and then in a very short period of time [unintelligible]… in the early ‘70s.

JOHN: That is a big change.

AGOSTINO: Big change.

JOHN: And … when you came, did you either of you speak English?

ANNA: No, not at all.

AGOSTINO: I studied … in Italy I studied French, Latin, Greek, but no English. So that was the biggest problem. No language. So that's why it took me awhile before I got into business. Because, of course, if you don't have the knowledge of the language you don’t know what you’re doing … but, you know, four years after we came, in 1973, my English was good enough that … I was able to take over an established place like this one.

JOHN: You mentioned that you had to wait for a long time to get the permission to come … Did that have anything to do with the post-World War Two period?

AGOSTINO: No, that was just … the quota for Italy was a few thousand people a year. And then when Pope Paul VI came to the U.N. in ‘65, he asked the government to … put a few extra thousand people in the quota. And since we waited so long, we were able to get into the system. And then in 1967 my father received a notice from the consulate in Genoa, the American consulate in Genoa, that … now it’s in Milan, but at the time it was in Genoa … that if he was still interested to come, he would be able if he so wanted. So what he did he came to visit my uncle and my aunt in 1967. And after he left, he was so enthusiastic that he made a final decision, and he said, “That's what we're going to do.” So when we came in ’69, we waited until the end of June because all of us were in school and wanted to make sure that we finished the scholastic year. And because he sold his business in Italy, we were able to buy our first house six months after we arrived. And like I said I started working immediately, and….

JOHN: And how old were your siblings?

AGOSTINO: Carmen was 14. And Lidia my older sister was 16. And my brother, who is no longer with us, was nine years old at the time. [Transcriber’s note: When they emigrated to San Francisco, Agostino was 18, his sister Lidia was 16, Carmen was 14, and younger brother Silvio was nine. Agostino lived with his parents and siblings in the Portola District, where Agostino continues to live with his wife Anna. For many of their years at Tommaso’s, Lidia was the head chef, while Agostino made pizza dough and waited tables, and Carmen greeted customers and waited tables. Anna entered the picture in 1981 and made desserts, and the took over as executive chef when Lidia moved on. In the early days, Agostino's mother also helped make pizzas, and Agostino and Anna's son Giorgio also worked at Tommaso's for some time. Anna came to Tommaso's with previous experience, having worked at her family's restaurant in Mese.]

JOHN: And they enrolled in school right away, your sisters?

AGOSTINO: Believe it or not Carmen, I don't know how she did it, but as you know it's very hard to get into Lowell. She got into Lowell as soon as she got here for some reason. Maybe because she was smart. She seems… [smiles]  [Transcriber’s note: Lowell High School is the only public high school in San Francisco that uses merit-based admissions, and it has long had a strong academic reputation.]

JOHN: What about you, Anna? How did you … what was the process for learning English?

ANNA: It was not easy. [chuckles]

JOHN: Did you go to school?

ANNA: I went to school, but I was learning Vietnamese at the time [chuckles] because it was full of … people from Vietnam. And then he said, “No more.” So I learned with Agostino.

JOHN: What year again was it that you came?

ANNA: 1981.

JOHN: ‘81. So after the Vietnam War. That reminds me, Agostino, that you came as an 18-year-old to America when we were in the midst of the Vietnam War. Was that a concern of yours?

AGOSTINO: Definitely. There were two problems with me at that age. First, if I if I would have stayed in Italy, I had to even if I was in the seminary, I had to spend six months for the military as the law. Coming here, the first thing my uncle told me, he said, “This is the most important thing, you have to register for the military.” And I did. I was so fortunate that since I arrived late and, you know, the war in Vietnam was nearing the end they never called me. But I did everything properly. Otherwise, I would be a deserter and, you know, you are screwed for life.

JOHN: And when you [Anna] came, did you find work right away or … you met him?

ANNA: Right here in the restaurant, yeah. 

JOHN: And so Tommaso’s has … before it was Tommaso’s, it was Lupo’s...

AGOSTINO: Yes.

JOHN: It started in 1935, is that correct?

AGOSTINO: Correct. I'll give you a brief history. This place is 89 years old. The Cantalupo family from Naples, they shortened their last name Cantalupo to Lupo, and they called this place Lupo’s from 1935 until 1971. They were the ones that when they opened this place they put in the first brick oven on the West Coast. The oven is still functioning today after 89 years. When Alice at Chez Panisse opened … in the early 1970s she sent a bricklayer to get the design from us ... so everything started here. But going back to the Lupos, the Lupos operated this place, they created this place and they were here until 1971, when they, just like we are doing now, they decided to retire after so many years in business successfully. And they had a chef, a cook named Tommy Chin, he was a Chinese fellow who worked in the kitchen for 25 years. What they did, they decided to give him as a present the place, but not the name. Everybody keeps the name in the family. So the Cantalupos they gave him no choice, so to speak, and what he did he Italianized his name Tommy to Tommaso, which is Italian for Tommy obviously. Then when we bought the place from him two years later in 1973, we decided not to change the name again. That’s why the place is still called Tommaso’s, sort of in the honor of the cook.

JOHN: And as I understand it, Lupo’s was quite a popular place. There were a lot of entertainers and other people who were performing up the street would come...

AGOSTINO: Sure, people from the hungry i. And also the … what’s the name of the place… [Transcriber's Note: Per Wikipedia, the hungry i was founded in 1949 or 1950  as a small venue at the corner of Kearny and Columbus. Owner Enrico Banducci began hiring comedians in 1953, encouraging them to express themselves freely. Their success caused queues around the block, until Banducci moved the hungry i to the International Hotel at 599 Jackson Street in 1954. The hungry i and Banducci were instrumental in the careers of Mort Sahl, who was the pioneer of a new style of stand-up comedy, Bill Cosby and Lenny Bruce. The Kingston Trio recorded two noted albums at the hungry i, and Phyllis Diller, Dick Cavett, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and Joan Rivers were among the other entertainers whose careers were boosted at the hungri i.]  

JOHN: The Matador?

AGOSTINO: Yeah, the Matador. Well, actually, the likes of Bob Hope and Jack Webb, Bette Davis, Julia Child, Frank Sinatra, the Marx Brothers. Back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, these famous people they used to come to San Francisco, usually coming up from L.A. to play on the weekend. And Lupo’s was one of their favorite hangouts. [Transcriber’s notes: El Matador, located on Broadway at Kearny, was a popular jazz club in the 1950s and '60s run by writer and sometime matador Barnaby Conrad. Nowadays, Keys Jazz Bistro is located in the same building that housed El Matador.]

JOHN: And what was it, do you think, about Lupo’s that was so appealing? I think in that era there wasn't very many … pizza was sort of new in America, wasn’t it?

AGOSTINO: Exactly. The reason that pizza became popular later on in the ‘60s and so forth is because the veterans that were in Naples in World War Two they got a taste of the pizza there. And then when they came back here to the United States, they sort of started craving this dish. But before that, there were very few places that served pizza, and Lupo’s was definitely one of them. And one of the best.

JOHN: I think people like the atmosphere, too, like the famous paintings on the wall...

AGOSTINO: Yes, the Cantalupos they sort of recreated the feelings of a Neapolitan restaurant. Not just the menu, but the ambiance also. What they did they hired a local artist in America in the early ‘30s, and they gave him postcards that they brought from Naples with them. And the guy just painted the walls, and we have several scenes, including the Blue Grotto and scenes of Naples in [unintelligible]. And the rumor is that they paid him with spaghetti and meatballs.

JOHN: [laughter] That's a good one. OK. And when you when you took over I guess from Tommaso, from Tommy, initially you rented the place, right?

AGOSTINO: Yes. Well, Mr. Chung, the landlord, yes, he was renting to us until 1984, when we were able to buy the building from him.

JOHN: And this guy is kind of famous in his own right. Do you want to tell that story?

AGOSTINO: Absolutely. Mr. Chung, Henry Chung, became famous because he opened a small place down the street on Kearny, a very small place – he had seven tables at that time… this is interesting because a writer from The New Yorker, on a foggy, cold day in San Francisco, walked into this hole in the wall serving Chinese food, and Hunan-type Chinese food that nobody knew at the time, this is the early ‘70s, using the chili pepper and so forth, and he loved it so much that when he wrote the article he said “best Chinese restaurant in the world.” Now because of that, Henry Chung was sort of forced to enlarge, of course, because he had a line down the street. And then Herb Caen picked up on it and gave him half a column, too. And so it just exploded. And so he was forced to enlarge, and he came to us, and he said since I have the first right of refusal when I signed the first lease, he told me, he said, you know, the building is for sale because he needed the money in order to buy the warehouse on Sansome Street. A big place for this restaurant. And I immediately said, “Of course, I'm interested,” and we made the deal and the rest is history. [Transcriber’s note: Henry Chung (1918-2017) opened Hunan Restaurant in 1974 with his wife Diana, one of the first restaurants to introduce Hunanese cuisine to the United States. Hunan Restaurant’s first location, at 853 Kearny Street, had a 10-seat counter and tables for another 26. After New Yorker writer Tony Hiss wrote in 1976 that Hunan was “the best Chinese restaurant in the world,” the lines became so long and so constant that street performers set up on the block to entertain them, per an rticle in SFGate. In 1979, the Chungs opened a larger space on Sansome Street, and other locations followed.]

JOHN: And so I think when you took over you, even though you're northern Italians and have a different cuisine, you decided to keep everything...

ANNA: Exactly. Keep the same.

JOHN: Do you think that's the secret to...?

AGOSTINO: A very smart move.

ANNA: Yeah.

AGOSTINO: We consulted each other, Carmen and I, you know, because Carmen, she was so young. She was 16 at the time when we got the place, so she couldn't get a license, she had to wait five years. But we all made the decisions together from the very beginning. Of course, that was important, and my parents were here with us, working with us and so forth. So we thought about it, and we could have gone in a different direction. Where we come from it’s mainly butter and cheese and a different cuisine. This is mainly tomato sauce and garlic. And so we felt that since the place is already established as a Neapolitan restaurant, the ambiance was Neapolitan, everything was Neapolitan. The cook, even though he was Asian, he was taught by the Cantalupo family the recipes from Naples. So we decided to keep it as a Neapolitan restaurant. Very, very smart move.

JOHN: Did you ever introduce any Lombardy cuisine or…?

AGOSTINO: Eventually. Over the years, we added a few of our own things. Cheese and ravioli with pesto, for example, is not Neapolitan. The lasagna is more northern and southern in our case, because that's the way we created it. And occasionally, actually every month we do a special, and over the years we introduced some northern Italian dishes in the specialties. But eventually they came off the menu, because they were special of the month only. But the soul of the menu it’s always been the same like it was for…

JOHN: So I can remember as a child coming here, and … it's always been a very popular place. And there was a line down the street. How many pizzas, you know, in a night would you sell?

AGOSTINO: Oh, you know, we averaged for years 150 a night, you know. But you have to remember we had the kitchen, too. So you combined the two places together. Then what happened was in 1981, People magazine came out with the best pizza places in the United States of America. And we came in at number three. We were tied with [unintelligible] in New York. And that's 26 million people that read that, you know. And so for five years we had a line down the street around the corner every night.

JOHN: And you had some celebrities of your own coming here?

AGOSTINO: Absolutely. When I worked at the Caffe Trieste as a barista, Francis Coppola was writing the script of “The Godfather” in a small [unintelligible] typewriter in the corner. And I used to bring him a cappuccino every so often. And we became good friends. He saw the way I worked. And then when he learned that we got to this place, he was crossing in front of the corner one day, and we met right in the middle of Broadway. And he said to me, he said, “I heard that you took over the old Lupo’s. Do you mind if I come in and make a pizza for the kids?” And I said, “Francis, you are very welcome.” And make a long story short, when Newsweek magazine came out with a lengthy article after The Godfather’s success, they published a picture of Francis making his own pizza in front of our oven. Very good publicity. And we've been friends ever since. Actually, he was here about two weeks ago, after a long time.

JOHN: And Herb Caen, I think, helped?

AGOSTINO: Herb Caen … Herb Caen liked Lupo’s. And he liked Carmen. [Anna laughs] And he wrote about this place so many times … This I can quote because I memorized it: “Today I identified a fine North Beach restaurant named for a Chinese. Right. Tommaso’s still home of the best pizza in town. Owned by the Crotti family but named in honor of the cook Tommy (Tommaso) Chin. Along with the splendid food, the place still retains the bohemian flavor of the 1930s. Garlicky, of course. Every time I walk in, I expect to see the late founder Frankie Cantalupo on his usual position on his knees crying real tears as he describes the agonizing beauty of the baked clams and fried squid. [Transcriber’s note: the exact quote and date of publication are not confirmed.]

JOHN: [laughter] And that’s very good memory, too … and your sister Olivia was the executive chef?

ANNA: Yes.

AGOSTINO: Olivia … well, we had a restaurant, actually, we opened a restaurant for her in Cayucos, San Luis Obispo County. Between Cambria and Morro Bay. And she was there for seven years. And then she decided to come back with us. And she ... was in the kitchen for, like, 30 some-odd years before she retired a few years ago. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, Cayucos is an unincorporated coastal town in San Luis Obispo County along California State Route 1 between Cambria to the north and Morro Bay to the south.]

JOHN: And Anna, are you now the…?

ANNA: Not really. I told everybody to do whatever needs to be done.

JOHN: And Jerry Brown, I think, is also one of the...

AGOSTINO: Jerry Brown has been coming here since the early ‘80s. The first time he came in, he was brought in by Francisco Coppola. They took over the place on a Monday night. It was their birthdays, which is five years apart. And he's been coming back ever since. Actually, I have a date with him the 6th of December. Because I called him and I said, “Hey look, you know, we’re closing the restaurant, and you know we sold it. So I would like to have a supper, a dinner with you and your wife one night, like a Last Supper so to speak. And so I called him a couple of days ago. And he was in town, but he wasn’t able to make it that night. But he said, “Friday, the 6th of December. I'll be there. I'm just going to call you back and let you know the time” … we have a wonderful relationship. He’s been tremendous with us, and we’ve got a ton of publicity because of him of course.  And he's a good friend.

JOHN: And you bought the building, I think, in 1984. Is that correct?

AGOSTINO: ’84, yes.

JOHN: From Henry?

AGOSTINO: From Henry, right.

JOHN: And this building, I think you told me, had been here and destroyed in the ’06 earthquake, and...

AGOSTINO: 1906 quake it fell down. And what they did, they used the same bricks and they built it back up again. And then later on, at a great expense, we had it retrofitted for the earthquake. That doesn’t mean that it’s earthquake-proof. It means, you know, it’s earthquake-safe, so to speak. In case the worst happens, at least it won't fall down right away.

JOHN: Well … you mentioned a minute ago that the place has sold. That you’ve sold. So after 51 years, you're passing the torch.

AGOSTINO: Exactly.

JOHN: Who is the new owner? Are you able to say?

AGOSTINO: Absolutely. Her name is Maureen. She was the manager of North Beach Restaurant for several years. She worked at Postrio before. And we met her about a year ago, and she showed interest in buying this place. And so … we’re signing the lease. And she's also interested in buying the building eventually when she gets the finances together. And we feel that with the experience and the desire, she will be able to continue with our tradition. She promised us that she would keep all of the employees and the same menu. And to make a few changes … few changes in the décor, whatever she likes. But basically she's going to leave this whole place alone. [Transcriber’s note: Maureen "Mo" Donegan purchased Tommaso's from the Crottis in 2024.]

JOHN: And you'll be going to Italy as you have every year for how many years?

ANNA: Yes. Since we got married. 43 years.

JOHN: Forty-three years. You’re going to your…?

ANNA: My town, yes.

AGOSTINO: Yeah. We have a restaurant there. We have winery there. And we have a home there.

JOHN: And do you think that after … will you be spending more time there as…?

AGOSTINO: Eventually.

ANNA: Yeah, eventually. We’re going to…

AGOSTINO: …she has desire to spend more time with her family. And me, I’m with her.

ANNA: Yeah, we're going to stay for five weeks this Christmas. Usually we have rushed to come back to reopen the restaurant. But not this time.

JOHN: And what does Carmen … and by the way, I'm sorry to say Carmen couldn't join us today because she's not feeling well … but how is … what is she planning to do then?

AGOSTINO: Well, she's going to spend more time with her grandkids and, you know, with her family … we have nobody left in our little town because we’ve been way so long, you know, it’s been 54 years now. Fifty-five actually. And so everybody's gone. But because of my wife's family, that's why we have to the desire to go back and spend more time.

JOHN: And you said they have a winery?

ANNA: Winery and a restaurant, yes.

AGOSTINO: They also bought a convent in just now, directly from the Vatican. A hundred and eighty rooms…

ANNA: Not for the convent. For the land around it, for the vineyards.

AGOSTINO: For the vineyards. But two rooms. One is named after my wife, and one after me. Because we are honored guests, I guess. And they are doing very well. They have one Michelin-starred Crotasc. And they make 14 wines. Actually, The Wine Spectator a couple of years ago came out with the best 100 wines in the world, and one of their wines came in at number 84. Unbelievable. [Transcriber’s note: Ristorante Crotasc is the restaurant and inn owned by Anna's family in Mese. The restaurant was founded in 1928 by Maria and Mamete Prevostini.]

JOHN: That’s terrific … Well, is there anything that we haven't covered that we should?

ANNA: No. We are ready for retirement.

AGOSTINO: Well, what about my posters? … I’ll be very brief. We've got “The Godfather Three” over here. Autographed by Francis Coppola. It’s been hanging here for years. Here we have … this is unbelievable. Nicolas Cage, who has been a customer since he was a kid … maybe because he saw his uncle's poster up he says, “Why don't you put up one of mine?” And I said, “Of course.” Now the dilemma was which of his movies would be most appropriate for this restaurant? And he picked “Moonstruck” because he was a bread-maker in front of an oven just like ours.

And then we have “Hemingway and Gellhorn” … it's a movie that was produced and directed by Phil Kaufman. Phil Kaufman is a personal friend of mine. He comes in here one night and he says, he looks at me straight in the face and he says, “I'm looking for a bald, fat and a little bit ugly chef. And I want you to be in the movie.” And I said, “Absolutely.” But this is what's funny: he also asked Carmen my sister to be in the movie as an aging whore. And she said, “Old yes. Aging whore. She could fit the part.” [Transcriber’s note: Philip Kaufman's 2012 film"Hemingway & Gellhorn" was filmed in the SF Bay Area. Agostino has a small role in the film.]

JOHN: [laughter]

AGOSTINO: Anyway, I still get my royalties. But my last check was like, I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago? Seventeen dollars?

ANNA: Yeah.

AGOSTINO: Something like that. But they keep on coming.

JOHN: I'm going to have to see that one.

AGOSTINO: Yeah, yeah.

JOHN: I’ll look for the chef.

AGOSTINO: It’s short. I have two speaking roles.

JOHN: Yeah. Great … well, 51 years it's a long time.

ANNA: Yes, it is.

JOHN: Do you have … mixed emotions?

AGOSTINO: Yeah, a little bit of regrets.

ANNA: No, I'm ready.

AGOSTINO: Not her. But me, I’m sort of going to miss this place somehow. But, you know, the time has come. My son is not interested. My niece, Carmen’s daughter, she’s not. And both Anna and Carmen, the two people who are running this place, because I’m sort of retired already … they’re tired, and they’re just … we made a decision that the time has come for us to turn the page. [Transcriber’s note: neither Carmen's daughter Margi nor Anna nad Agostino's son Giorgio were interested in taking over the Tommaso's business.]

JOHN: It's a lot of work...

ANNA: It is. About 13 hours a day. It's a long day.

JOHN: … You still, you remain in contact with the Cantalupo family?

AGOSTINO: Yes, there is … Russo…

ANNA: Robert Russo.

AGOSTINO: Robert Russo is the one of the last remaining…

ANNA: The grandson.

AGOSTINO: … and I have lunch with him once a month.

JOHN: You were a waiter, too, for a long time, right? You said you had four tables…

AGOSTINO: That was my job. I served tables for 48 years … And then I got sick and I couldn't work anymore. I'm just home, like a puppeteer, looking over things and giving suggestions. But not doing much anymore. But I did a lot, for many, many years. [Transcriber's note: After 48 years as a waiter, Agostino had to limit his work at Tommaso's due to health issues.]

JOHN: It's a good long run.

AGOSTINO: Yeah, a good long run.

JOHN: Well, thank you, Agostino and Anna.

JOHN: You could maybe go back and talk a little bit about what it was like to come from your time in the Vatican in the late ‘60s to San Francisco.

AGOSTINO: When I do my speech for one of the tours that we do, quite often actually called [unintelligible], and I talk about the restaurant for a few minutes. At the end, this is my quote: “From the holiest of places in the world I ended up in the red light district of North Beach. No wonder I’m still confused.”

JOHN: [laughter] When you say red light district, can you describe that a little bit more?

AGOSTINO: When we first started here in 1973, about 80 percent of the neighborhood was basically topless joints and porno shops. That's why it's called the red light district of North Beach.

JOHN: Were you attracted to North Beach because of its Italian heritage and…?

AGOSTINO: It was actually pure fate. Because my first job was at Caesar's Italian restaurant on Bay and Powell. Out of business for a few years now. Now it’s a parking lot. I started as a busboy there in July of 1969, and I was there until December. And then I ended up at Caffé Sport on Green Street, where they told me that they didn't have any availability at the time. So they sent me over to Caffe Trieste on Vallejo and Grant to ask for a job. And I was hired on the spot. They gave me a five- minute interview, and when I told them I came from the Vatican they felt that I was the right guy for them.

JOHN: [laughter]

AGOSTINO: And I was there for three years until I got involved here. And it’s because of the Caffe Trieste, and now we come back to North Beach, that's why I like North Beach so much. Everything for me started in North Beach. And it’s because of the old waiter Nino here that used to come out for a cappuccino and croissant every morning while I was a barista there. And he saw the way I worked behind the counter and everything, and he approached me and he said, “You know, there is this place down the street and they’re having some problems. Maybe you're interested. You know, you with your family, why don't you give it a try?” And to make a long story short, I ended up bussing tables here for a couple of weeks until we got the finances together. And we talked to Tommy Chin, the cook, and we agreed on a price. And we agreed on him staying behind and teaching us the recipes of the Cantalupo family. Because we come from the north part of Italy, so this is a different kind of cuisine. And we agreed on that, and then we took over and we started, and he stayed with us until a couple of years later when he passed away. But by then, we have learned the business. He taught me how to make the pizza dough, he taught my mom how to use the oven, he taught my sister Lidia that was the cook here for many years the recipe of the family. And we started like that, and we kept on growing until a couple, three weeks from now we are retiring.

JOHN: Almost from the get go after taking over in ‘73, this was a phenomenal success. And can you just maybe describe what it was like in terms of the people waiting to come in and people…?

AGOSTINO: Yeah, we had immediately, especially after Herb Caen started talking about us, talking about the best pizza in town, and liking Carmen, a line out the doors. And we got so many regulars that on Sunday night it was like a sacred night in this place. It was like going to church in a sense. Everybody had their own booth, their own table. And the times when somebody would take the liberty to get the wrong table at the wrong time, there would be fistfights right here in front of the restaurant. At the entrance … And we used to get jam-packed. Sometimes the line would start before we opened. And after we closed, we still had people to seat. And this went on for many years.

JOHN: Business was really, I think, continuously good for a long time. And the pandemic was really a kind of a turning point, no?

AGOSTINO: The only time that we suffered in any way as far as business is concerned is because of the pandemic. And during the pandemic, we were able to survive because of our regulars. They were keeping us going with the pickup and delivery business. They were very generous with their gratuities, and with their care and love. And even though we worked for nothing, we were able to survive and keep on going. But we did suffer, like everybody else.

JOHN: And you were telling me that you had a very kind of trouble-free time here. There was only, I think, one incident of someone breaking in.

AGOSTINO: Yeah, we got broken in. Fifty-one years we got broken in one time. Three things they took: they took a bottle of Rubicon, a magnum that Francis Coppola gave us as a Christmas present maybe 20 years ago that was sitting at the family table … when we got broken into one time, about five years ago. Yeah, they took the magnum of Rubicon. That was a $500 bottle of wine. The only problem, it was sitting on the corner of the family table, up on the on the ledge, for so many years that it was probably undrinkable. [laughter] They also took a framed poster of Godfather Three, autographed to me by Francis. And then a few bucks from the cash register. We didn’t leave too much money in there. But that was it … oh, yeah, and a couple of computers, the iPad for pickup and delivery. That's about it.

JOHN: I think that's a wrap.

AGOSTINO: OK, good.

[END]