La Famiglia Manno Part Four: Anna & John Anna Manno was born in Palermo on April 26, 1935 — the third child and the third daughter of Francesco Paolo and Elena Manno. She lived on the same street as John Mineo, who was two years her senior. When Anna immigrated to the United States in 1956 with her father and her brother Paul, she was already engaged to Mineo, who had a position with the Italian Merchant Marine.
Why Francesco Paolo Manno chose to take his son and his third oldest daughter to the United States in 1956 relates to an incident betwee his second oldest daughter, Concetta, and the Sicilian Mafia. The details differ, depending on which family member tells the story. John Mineo Jr. tells the most graphic tale and the one that best explains why his mother was forced to immigrate to America.
Once in St. Louis, Anna lived with her father and brother in an apartment at 4250 North Broadway. While the two men labored at Nathan Tureen's barrel factory, Anna worked making bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses at Nania's Bridal Originals on Cass Avenue. After a year in St. Louis, Anna longed for the man she had left behind in Italy. Her brother Paul put her on a ship and she returned to Palermo to marry John Mineo.
Anna returned to the United States in May of 1958 on the same ship as her mother and sisters, Serafina and Rosalia, who were immigrating to America. John Mineo would immigrate the following year, after his brother-in-law Paul Manno had filed the appropriate petition and papers.
Anna and John Mineo had three children, all born in St. Louis. John Jr. was born in 1961, Paul in 1964 and Sal in 1967. When John Mineo joined his wife back to St. Louis, Paul Manno found them a place to stay and helped Mineo get a job at St. Mary's Hospital. Anna had gone back to work at Nania's. After Paul Manno settled in as a waiter at Tony's restaurant, he got Mineo a job there too. John Mineo Jr. remembers how hard his parents worked.
John Mineo left Tony's in 1967. He and Anna partnered with Agostino and Rosa Gabriele to open Agostino's on the Hill at 5201 Shaw. Mineo served as maître d’ while Agostino and Rosa worked in the kitchen.
Although Agostino's on the Hill did well, in 1972, Gabriele and Mineo decided to sell the restaurant and go their separate ways. John Jr. remembers the car ride with his parents to Clayton and Mason roads in West St Louis County.
In April of 1973, John Mineo's Italian Restaurant opened at Clayton and Mason roads.
In his July 18, 1973 St. Louis Post-Dispatch review of the new restaurant, critic Joe Pollack exclaimed that "dinner was a sparkling experience." But he was concerned with the space.
Pollack's misgivings were unfounded.
In 1982, John and Anna Mineo began serving lunch in a separate space adjoining their restaurant. Dubbed Anna's, it offered a menu of sandwiches, salads and other light fare from 11 a.m to 2 p.m. In 2004 the space morphed into Anna's Bistro, serving both a light lunch and dinner. The spinoff disappeared by the end of 2005.
In March of 1987, John Mineo partnered with his brother-in-law, Paul Manno, in a downtown restaurant. They opened John Mineo II & Paul's on the ground floor of the new St. Louis Centre. As designated by the Roman numeral, it was 26-year-old John Jr. who initially ran the restaurant with Manno. The younger Mineo had been an All-American running back at Indiana University.
John Jr. manned the kitchen while his Uncle Paul oversaw the dining room. But the partnership didn't work out. Years later, John Jr. took the blame.
After a year or so, Manno took over operation of the downtown restaurant with his wife, Concetta, and John Jr. returned to his father's West County restaurant.
In November of 1989, the three Mineo brothers opened a restaurant at 163 Lamp & Lantern Village. Mineo's Pasta Bowl was a family-style restaurant which allowed diners to share large bowls of pasta.
Both John Mineo II & Paul's and Mineo's Pasta Bowl closed in 1991. While John Jr. and Sal returned to work the front of the house at their parents' restaurant on Clayton Road, the middle Mineo son set out on his own. In May of 1992, Paul Mineo partnered with Steve Schumaier and Firmin Puricelli to open Willoughby's Bar & Grille in the Watson Village Shopping Center. Mineo served as full time chef. But in March of 1993, it was announced that lead partner Schumaier had not only parted company with Puricelli, but had evicted Mineo as well. Willoughby's closed the following year. In April of 1993, it was rumored that Paul Mineo was opening a family-style pizza, pasta, steak restaurant called Knockouts on June 1 in the Village Square Shopping Center. However, in May of 1993, Mineo was in Tulsa, Oklahoma serving as the chef for a new Italian restaurant in the Adam's Mark Hotel. He was in the Adam's Mark kitchen for four months; he returned to his parents' kitchen on Clayton Road in September.
Paul Mineo wasn't back at his parents' restaurant for long. In May of 1994, he debuted a restaurant at 4501 Lindell, in the Lindell Terrace apartment building. Initially dubbed Pauli's, Paul Mineo's Italian Bistro opened to decent reviews. But by the summer of 1995, Mineo had moved on. In July of 1995, Paul Mineo lured his brother John away from the family's Clayton Road restaurant and the two brothers opened Mineo's Primavera at 7823 Forsyth in Clayton. Susan Hegger gave the restaurant high marks in her January 4, 1996 St. Louis Post-Dispatch review.
In August of 1996, basking in the glory of their successful Clayton debut, the Mineo brothers partnered with John Rallo and Mike Miller, and opened Johnny Rollers Piano Bar & Grill at 16 North Central, around the corner from their Italian restaurant. The '50s-style cocktail lounge offered a small menu of appetizers, soup, salad, sandwiches and gourmet pizza, plus a daily pasta dish brought in from its sister restaurant down the street. In addition to enjoying nightly piano jazz with their food and drink, customers were encouraged by Paul Mineo and his partners to smoke cigars.
The club-like restaurant, whose curbside looked for a few short months like a Jaguar dealer's showroom, was shuttered in February of 1997.
The Mineo brothers didn't run Mineo's Primavera for much longer. They closed it by August of 1997. John Jr. returned to the kitchen on Clayton Road to help manage the restaurant with his parents. And in November of 1997, with his friend Bill Green, Paul Mineo changed the name of the restaurant at 7823 Forsyth from Mineo's Primavera to Amici.
Amici was short lived. On April 15, 1998, Jim Fiala opened another restaurant in the 7823 Forsyth space with another new name — The Crossing.
In 1999, Paul Mineo married Brigette Clark. Their son, Giovanni Mineo, was born in 2001. For a time, Mineo left the kitchen and tried his hand at the mortgage loan business. But in January of 2008, Paul and Brigette Mineo opened Paul Mineo's Trattoria in Westport Plaza.
The Westport Plaza restaurant was a casual trattoria; there were no tuxedo-clad waiters or tableside preparations. Mineo's Uncle Benny — Benedetto Buzzetta, the husband of his Aunt Rosalia — helped in the kitchen. T.J. Martin's review in the February 28, 2008 Ladue News echoed the overwhelming positive response to Paul and Brigette Mineo's new restaurant.
Paul Mineo was happy at his new restaurant. His wife Brigette was the perfect partner. He often sang to his customers; his favorites were "New York, New York," "Fly Me to the Moon" and "My Way." On July 25, 2009, Paul Mineo died of colon cancer at the age of 45.
Brigette Mineo continued to run the restaurant with her husband's name for over ten years.
Paul Mineo's Trattoria closed on March 17, 2020, a victim of the pandemic. * * * * * John Mineo Jr. continued to manage the restaurant at Clayton and Mason roads, working side by side with his parents in the kitchen.
John Mineo Sr. died on November 18, 2020 at the age of 87. Anna Manno Mineo died on July 26, 2022 at the age of 87. John Mineo's Italian Restaurant celebrated its 50th birthday in April of 2023.
Copyright © 2024
LostTables.com |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
