Table 9 is now in the location where Chiocca’s Park Avenue Inn was from 1964 to 2004.

Note: Here’s a piece I wrote six years ago about the Chiocca family’s restaurants in Richmond. Two of the places it covers, Chiocca’s Park Avenue Inn and Dot’s Back Inn, have since changed hands. But the history hasn’t changed. Few families in the restaurant business, if any, have had more impact on more Richmonders over the last century than the Chioccas.

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In these times of fast food, theme restaurants and faux fine dining, it’s getting harder every day to find an authentic neighborhood dive with dependable blue collar cuisine and a non-threatening atmosphere. Still, Richmond has a few left. At the top of the heap are the small quirky restaurants run by folks named Chiocca.

They are: Chiocca’s at 425 N. Belmont and Chiocca’s Park Avenue Inn at the corner of Meadow Street and Park Avenue. Then again, let’s not leave out Frances “Cookie” Giannini‘s Dot’s Back Inn at 4030 MacArthur Avenue. She’s a cousin.

So cue the traditional Italian music, if you please. Belly up to the bar. What follows is the saga of the Chiocca family’s enterprise and enduring friendships with their customers/neighbors.

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Frank Chiocca, on crutches, negotiated his way down the four steps from the sidewalk. It was good to see that Frank’s usual gregarious nature had not been deflated by his misfortune with a tricky ladder. His smile was genuine as he carefully took his seat at a round blacktop table and spread out the treasured materials he had brought.

Joining him around the table were two of his brother Mario’s children Carla Chiocca and Tim Chiocca. Also there was their cousin, Susan “Chockie” Roberts. All three work at Chiocca’s Downstairs Deli and Bar, the site of the meeting.

Susan produced City Directory records from 1883 showing a Peter Chiocca as being affiliated with what was then called a “confectionery” at 119 E. Broad St. Later he is shown to have operated a saloon. Dog-eared papers and sepia-toned photographs covered the table.

Of the four, none was exactly sure of how this Peter Chiocca was related to the three Chiocca brothers – probably a generation younger – who followed him to Richmond, Virginia from Lucca, Italy some years later. They were named Joseph, Severino and Pietro.

Records reveal that these busy Chioccas worked in restaurants and grocery stores in various downtown locations during the early years of the last century. Two of the three, Severino and Pietro, went on to establish the Chiocca’s restaurant dynasty. They are Frank’s uncle and father, respectively.

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In 1912 Joseph Chiocca with his brother, Severino, opened up a new confectionery at 812 W. Broad St. Later the business came to be known as Jimmy’s, after Severino’s nickname. Over the years various relatives worked there. Jimmy Chiocca retired after World War II; selling the thriving restaurant to his son, Andrew, who was home from the war. Andrew, with his sister Dot at his side, operated the place until 1982.

Dottie Chiocca was a memorable character. When her name is mentioned people who knew her always smile, then they shake their heads. Her gruff running repartee with regulars passed for wry humor in that mishmash of a neighborhood, with its assortment of tradesmen, car salesmen, shopkeepers and bohemians.

In the waning days of Jimmy’s Susan Roberts pitched in to help her father out. Affectionately, she wonders as she waits tables now if she is becoming too much like her Aunt Dottie.

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Three of Pietro J. Chiocca’s sons were born in Italy. During a visit to Italy – apparently he was back and forth several times – he got caught in World War I and wound up serving for the duration in the Italian army as part of an elite corps.

In 1920 Silvio G. Funai opened Funai’s Confectionery at 327 E. Franklin Street. The building had once been a public library. The company became Funai & Chiocca when Pietro “Pete” Chiocca came in as a partner.

When Funai retired, in 1937, the busy restaurant became known as Chiocca and Son as Pete bought out Funai’s interest. All four of Pete’s sons – Andrew, Joe, Mario and Frank – worked there as they grew up.

Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Charles McDowell, Jr. wrote a winsome piece lamenting the passing of the Chiocca’s at 4th and Franklin. He based it, in part, on data supplied to him by Frank; produced on the portable typewriter he used to type out the daily menus.

McDowell reported that Frank’s history recalled, “…the prohibition days, …the bawdy girls who would occasionally saunter in to catch the eye of a medical student, a lawyer, an artist, musician, and perhaps even a newspaperman, …and the ever-present gas pilot light at face level near the tobacco case, for lighting one’s cigar or cigarette.”

A blowup of that article hangs on a wall of memorabilia at 425 N. Belmont. “In World War II,” wrote McDowell, “when his four sons went away to the service, Peter J. Chiocca – ‘Uncle Pete or ‘Papa Pete’ to everyone – held the fort alone. He was 60 years old then.”

Andrew Chiocca, the eldest of the brothers, was on hand to lock it up for the last time in 1961. It seems the building was in the way of progress in the form of a parking lot.

McDowell, who saw Andrew as a friend, concluded, “All the boys were there in the restaurant after the war, when some of us got to know the place, and the warmth and brightness of the family made the old restaurant a remarkably attractive place. Nobody ever bragged on the cuisine. The boys were proud of the place as what they liked to call ‘a home away from home’ for friends, newspapermen and others working in the neighborhood, and the wayfaring strangers.”

According to Andrew, he introduced pizza to the Richmond market after the war. It happened out of the blue when a new customer called in a pickup order on the telephone, asking for a pizza. Andrew volunteered that he knew how to make one, although pizza was not on the menu. The next day there were several calls to the downtown eatery for more pizzas.

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1n 1947 Joe Chiocca became the first of Pete’s sons to open his own location at 2915 W. Cary Street. He called it Chiocca’s. The homey café was across the street from the Byrd Theater.

In the ‘50s families going to Chiocca’s for an Italian dinner was an integral part of a classic night on the town that included a show at the Byrd. In those days a “show” meant a cartoon, newsreels, a short subject, a feature film, and Eddie Weaver at the mighty Wurlitzer.

Joe Chiocca died in 1969 and the restaurant closed about a year later. His older brother Andrew, who had worked there since the end of the downtown location, closed this door for the last time, too.

Andrew took with him, as a souvenir, the 32 caliber Smith & Wesson that had been the peacemaker kept under the cash register at “the saloon,” an early incarnation of Chiocca’s; probably located at 613 N. 3rd Street. He passed it on to his nephew Tim.

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During WWII Mario Chiocca, as his brothers Andrew and Joe, served in the Army; duty taking all three to Europe. After the war he went back to work in the downtown restaurant. In 1952 Mario opened his own Chiocca’s at 425 N. Belmont.

In 2001 the place is remarkably unchanged as two of Mario’s three children, Tim and Carla, are now carrying on the family tradition. The meatiest of sandwiches are still served with a good-natured wise crack; sorry, no hard liquor is available.

Tim recalled Father Rembert, of nearby St. Benedict, coming in after church with his black cape flowing behind and his Sunday newspaper under his arm. The priest was well-known in the parish for his theatrical gestures and he thoroughly enjoyed a ritual of pointing to customers and braying, “I didn’t see you in church, I didn’t see you in church…”

“The men would be hiding their beers,” added Tim, widening his eyes and throwing up his hands. “My dad would say – ‘Father, this isn’t good for my business.’ Then he [Father Rembert] would sit down and have a beer.”

From her childhood Carla Chiocca recalled certain key customers: ”Daddy bought a special chair for Mr. [John] Curley [who was quite stout] because one collapsed under him.”

She cited John Shand of WTVR-TV as one of the restaurant’s original and most faithful patrons, as well as the ring-leader for much of what went on around the restaurant.

Tim laughed as he mentioned old Charlie Shopland, from England, who always sat near the door and sometimes wielded his cane for cheap laughs.

Although this edition of Chiocca’s draws in plenty of young people, it remains the place where a crowd of longtime regulars still gathers to watch ball games and discuss the events of the day.

A typical Wednesday afternoon’s gathering features the semi-diminutive raconteur Billy Snead orchestrating laughs. For decades this crowd has been doing exactly the same thing, gladly, under the same collection of collegiate pennants on the wall and over their glasses of amber brew.

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In 1964 Frank Chiocca, the only one of Pete’s sons to be born in the USA (1925), opened Chiocca’s Park Avenue Inn. Frank’s place is known for its made-to-order sandwiches and its convivial atmosphere.

The room is an odd-shaped space slapped onto the Park Avenue side of a 1908 townhouse facing Meadow. Among other things, it is the home of a sandwich called “the masterpiece,” an inspiration that includes an anchovy sauce based on Pia Maria Chiocca’s condiment recipe; Frank’s mother.

The last of Pete’s boys is still recuperating from his July 18th injury; a broken heel. Cheerfully, he plans to return to his post soon. In the meantime, employees and friends are filling in for his shifts. One of those pals, Stuart Cottrell, ordinarily a tug boat captain, has been covering a couple of days a week for Frank.

The much-traveled Cottrell pointed out he has known the Chiocca family all of his life. Leaning against the beer box and flashing a salty grin the substitute barkeep volunteered, “My father was a ‘Mulberry Street Wildcat,’ along with Mario Chiocca.”

A couple of other graying Fan District wags nearby chuckled at the invocation of the appellation of neighborhood Depression-era baseball players and mischief-makers. Cottrell noted that the Wildcats were probably about as mean a gang as the Little Rascals of black and white film fame in the same era.

Later that opened the door to Frank Chiocca’s telling a story featuring Lieutenant General Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller. It seems the famous marine hero had a sister who lived nearby. Perhaps gung-ho Chesty, who was aware that Frank, too, had served in the Pacific with the Marine Corps in World War II, liked patronizing the business of a fellow jarhead.

The bar’s TV was on, carrying one of President Johnson’s press grillings. The media was all over the prez for ducking questions about the escalating war’s direction. In frustration Johnson offhanded a quip that amounted to — “Who knows how long it might take to win in Vietnam? Maybe forever.”

Puller spoke out gruffly, “Can you imagine an American President telling his people it may take forever to lick the likes of that [the enemy in Vietnam]?

Frank added that Chesty’s sister begged, “Don’t get him started.”

A few more of the happy hour regulars gathered around. Someone said: “Tell the one about Bear Bryant.”

Frank’s eyes twinkled as he tilted his head and sighed. The patriarch of the Chiocca family was in his element.

Frank Chiocca stands for his last shift on Nov. 29, 2004

After years of knocking around in the restaurant business, in 1990 Cookie Giannini made her move. She opened Dot’s Back Inn in the Ginter Park area. Giannini named the place after her dauntless Aunt Dot of Jimmy’s fame.

With a snappy ‘40s motif and a reputation for well-prepared meals, Dot’s has a steady following. Among them, there’s a veritable cadre of refugees from the Fan District who live close by and frequent the place.

This restaurant is a bit different from the family’s two namesake locations, in that it serves cocktails. Cookie’s kitchen area is huge compared to the jam-packed countertop operations Frank and Tim are running. Thus, the Dot’s menu is much more varied than the sandwich-dominated fare of the other two.

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Is the name Chiocca supposed to be pronounced ChyAH-kah, or more like CHOC-kee?

Apparently, the answer is either way. The Chioccas descended from Pietro use the former pronunciation, Severino’s family goes with the latter. Frank advises that the name was pronounced something like “KeyAH-kah” in the old country.

With that little mystery solved, what channel is carrying that playoff game? Isn’t it time for another round of beer?

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This piece was originally published in FiftyPlus in 2001. Words and photos by F.T. Rea. All rights reserved.