{"id":6982,"date":"2026-08-03T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/?page_id=6982"},"modified":"2026-08-03T13:35:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:35:59","slug":"pepis-italian-deli","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/features\/pepis-italian-deli\/","title":{"rendered":"Pepi’s Italian Deli"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pepi\u2019s deli is really Mario\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Geeta Sharma-Jensen Journal Times, October 20, 1985<\/p>\n

RACINE \u2014 As delicatessens go, Pepi\u2019s Italian Deli seems at first glance to be like most others around here.<\/p>\n

Pressed meats and sausages share space with cheeses and salads in a glass-enclosed cooler. Jars of pickles and cans of sauce and seafood line shelves. Above the counter, white boards list the prices of sandwiches and drinks. And near the plate glass window, ice cream parlor-type chairs invite customers to sit and wait for orders.<\/p>\n

But as you sit and wait you begin to realize Pepi\u2019s is somehow different.<\/p>\n

For one thing, the cans and jars seem to have come direct from Italy. For another there are the round, squat glass jars filled with olive-green vegetables. Those are eggplants, pickled the Italian way with fresh mint leaves in oil, a house specialty.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the bambino steak sandwich which, a chalkboard proclaims, contains slices of steak, mushrooms, onions, and bacon drizzled with a spicy Mexican sauce, another house specialty.<\/p>\n

And pretty soon, you begin to get the idea you are in an ethnic deli which is mainly Italian, but si, si, there\u2019s a bit of Mexican creeping in.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because of Natcho and Mario, who started this small deli at 803 16th St. about two years ago.<\/p>\n

Mario Aiello, 55, is a short, dark, bubbly man with a passion for simmering Italian sauces and making spaghetti and lasagna. He has run a barbershop on 16th Street for more than 30 years, and helped raise seven daughters. But his secret desire had been a deli, a place where he could serve his sauces and pickles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always liked to cook,\u201d he said recently as he snipped away at the blond hair of a customer in his shop. \u201cSo I always wanted to start a sandwich shop. Nine years ago, I wanted to do it but I didn\u2019t have anybody to run it. Then, my son-in-law came along…\u201d<\/p>\n

That was Jose Torano, 27, nicknamed Natcho, an exchange student from Mexico whom his daughter had met in Mexico and got to know while both were at St. Catherine\u2019s High School.<\/p>\n

So, Mario remodeled part of the building he owned, got his sauces going, and with Natcho as manager, and the Aiello daughters as part-time help, Pepi\u2019s was in business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just started right from the bottom,\u201d remembered Natcho, picking out an Italian cookie for a customer. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about cooking. He (Mario) taught me all I know. We started making meatballs and lasagna, sauces and salads. Then the sandwiches. We learned by looking. And some of the girls (Mario\u2019s daughters) had experience in restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mario\u2019s Italian cooking caught on. And now, says Natcho, the deli is happily holding its own. It\u2019s open from 11 a.m. to about 7 p.m. six days a week and employs about seven part-timers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really nice. It\u2019s been word of mouth,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t advertise. Right now, we\u2019re doing OK. We\u2019re breaking even, paying the bills, and we\u2019re keeping the family busy, and that\u2019s enough for us right now. When we\u2019re ready to handle more, we\u2019ll advertise, we\u2019ll be busier.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days Pepi\u2019s does a brisk lunchtime business, attracting a crowd from S. C. Johnson & Son Inc. across the street. And as word has gotten around, the deli also has begun catering Italian-style hors d\u2019oeuvres for business affairs and open houses.<\/p>\n

Natcho concocts Mexican sauces and relishes using recipes his mother sends him from Mexico. His wife often helps cook the Mexican dishes Pepi\u2019s serves. She and another daughter also make Italian and American cookies and desserts. But when Pepi\u2019s caters an open house for 400 or so, Mario\u2019s wife, a nurse at St Mary\u2019s Hospital, and all seven daughters turn up to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole family is there,\u201d chuckled Mario. \u201c… My wife\u2019s German. That\u2019s the big joke. And she\u2019s making all these Italian trays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mario said he learned to cook from his mother, who brought many of the recipes \u2014 like the one for pickled eggplant \u2014 from the \u201cold country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what makes a good sauce, he said, \u201cSimmering. Cooking with love. No being overbearing on the spices. Going nice and easy. Yesterday, I had those big pots going until 6:30 at night. I started them at seven in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he cooks to his heart\u2019s content, Natcho scours markets in Milwaukee, Kenosha and Chicago for authentic Italian and Mexican products, some of which they sell in the deli.<\/p>\n

Their Italian-Mexican mixture may seem odd \u2014 \u201cThat\u2019s American,\u201d Mario says. But the marriage seems to be attracting customers.<\/p>\n

Said Roger DeRose, a marketing manager at Johnson\u2019s, who was in buying a Big Cheese submarine for $1.80, \u201cI come here about once or twice a week. And I have the same thing every time I come. It\u2019s always consistently good. They have a good variety of cheeses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney Theodore Harris, also in for deli fixings, put it this way: \u201cI come here all the time. I don\u2019t think they have any competition, really, for the kind of thing they do.\u201d *[Photo caption: Pepi\u2019s Deli proprietor Mario Aiello, left, and Jose Torano, the deli\u2019s manager. Photo by Chuck D\u2019Acquisto, Journal Times]*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pepi\u2019s deli is really Mario\u2019s By Geeta Sharma-Jensen Journal Times, October 20, 1985 RACINE \u2014 As delicatessens go, Pepi\u2019s Italian Deli seems at first glance to be like most others around here. Pressed meats and sausages share space with cheeses and salads in a glass-enclosed cooler. Jars of pickles and cans of sauce and seafood…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":33,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6982","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6982"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6988,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6982\/revisions\/6988"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}