The Matchcover Storyteller

“Lo Do” stands for “Lower Downtown” and today, it’s a vibrant near northwest neighborhood anchored by Denver’s remarkable Union Station and Coors Field, home of baseball’s Colorado Rockies,.   It’s also Denver’s oldest, rich with 19th century brick warehouses, modern dining, rooftop bars and more  —  it’s a place to be.

It’s where Frank Grandinetti was a fruit and vegetable vendor on a neighborhood street corner, described as a handsome Sicilian immigrant.  Pretty Theresa Balzano worked in a nearby garment factory when she leaned out a window to flirt with him.  He tossed her and apple and that was the beginning  —  they married in 1936.

They loved good food and good fun and both loved Leoncavallo’s opera “Pagliacci”  and it is said to be a love for Theresa that had Frank open Pagliacci, a fine Italian restaurant in 1946.  It closed in 2012, after 66 years.  

Pagliacci was Denver’s oldest single-family owned Italian restaurant; it   became a “go-to” spot when it opened right after WW II.  Thousands enjoyed dishes like their 7-layer lasagna, steak and lobster, frog legs and more, dining beside whitewashed walls and colorful murals.  Prom-going teens dined there over the decades.  It was a place where the Minestrone was delivered to your table in a steaming saucepan.

Frank died in 1972; the restaurant was taken over by family members in 1978, but finally shuttered in 2012, razed and replaced by a 5-story apartment building.  It’s said that there were still diners coming in weekly and more often; one suggested the news was “more bitter than stale garlic.”

This Lion 30-stick is one of only two matchcovers I have found for Pagliacci and the other is a Feature.  Beyond that, I think eBay has postcards.

Me. I’m still thinking about that 7-layer lasagna…..