JACKSON TWP. For three decades, Larry and Renee Anderson have been building a life and a successful restaurant together.
The couple married in May 1990 and in January 1991 opened Bocca Grande Italian Steakhouse at 4490 Erie Ave. NW. The restaurant’s 30th birthday was Thursday.
“Our entire married life, all we’ve ever known is this lifestyle,” Renee, 58, said about what the landmark anniversary means to them.
As far as the couple “living together, working together and playing together,” Larry, 61, said, “It’s actually been very easy. We’re after the same goals, and whatever we do we end up accomplishing 95% of it. We feed off each other. She keeps me in line and I keep her in line.”
Renee, who grew up in Erie, Pa., traces her easy compatibility and teamwork with Larry, a Glenwood High School grad, to their similar upbringings — hers Slovak and his Italian.
“Our grandparents were all immigrants that came here,” she said. “Our parents were first generation in this country. We were both raised with grandparents in the household who were born in the late 1800s. There was a work ethic there.”
At the restaurant, she said, “Whatever happens, we find a way to make it work. Even the pandemic, we knew it wouldn’t break us. We never doubted that from the start.”
Renee is Bocca’s hostess, and she handles payroll, social media and human resources.
Larry “does whatever it takes,” he said. “I was already baking bread this morning. I make ribs every day. But just everything — unclogging toilets, carpentry, fixing things.”
No experience
Before being transformed into Bocca Grande, the building at 4490 Erie had been a biker bar called Charlie Brown Saloon, which had closed due to its liquor license being revoked.
“I had no restaurant experience at all,” said Larry, who pre-Bocca worked for a trucking company doing “what they would call logistics now.”
Renee had managed a Bob Evans restaurant in Dover, but in 1991 was a telecommunications facility manager for GE Capital, a job she kept for the restaurant’s first five years.
“I had restaurant management experience. Larry’s family had cooking experience. My father had been a trained chef. We grew up in families where it was all about food and cooking,” Renee said. “We thought it would be fun to open a restaurant and work for ourselves.”
Bocca Grande, incidentally, means “big mouth” in Italian. It was Larry’s grandmother’s nickname for him.
Before Bocca Grande opened, the Andersons equipped the place with used grills, stoves, tables and chairs purchased from failed restaurants. They purchased the building a year and a half before opening and paid it off in the ’90s. Not having rent all these years has been a major asset, Larry noted.
Larry’s mother, Irene DeDente, was a key player in the launch of Bocca Grande.
“She said, ‘I’ll make the sauce for you, I’ll bake bread and make calzones,'” he said. “She would go over at some ungodly hour, 3 or 4 a.m., and cook. She was a cook at Aultman Hospital and those were the hours she was used to.”
The restaurant’s first chef, David Browne, is now a culinary instructor at R.G. Drage vocational school in Massillon.
Loyal customers
Bocca was not an overnight success.
“The first few years were difficult, then all of a sudden it really took off,” Larry said. “There was nothing out this way. I think we were 20 years too early for this area. Now there’s so much recreational use, with people walking and riding their bikes and kayaking.”
The Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath, and its Crystal Springs trailhead, are across the street from the restaurant.
Bocca Grande has developed a large and loyal customer base.
“We’ve seen families grow up,” Larry said. “People would bring in their 2-year-olds and now those kids have grown up and bring in their own children.”
“We’ve also seen people who are on their third marriages, and all three of the wives look the same,” Renee said with amusement.
“We have people who come in on the same days and have to sit at the same tables. We have people that probably come in three to four times a week,” she said. “I’ll see a couple having a $100 bottle of wine and filet mignon and down the bar there’s these young kids having an $11 pizza and some beer and they’re all taking to each other. It’s all casual.”
The Andersons credit Bocca’s executive chef for the past three years, Marc Anthony Milinihat, for recent culinary strides.
“What he has done is take our basic menu we’ve had over the years and made it explode. Some of the specials are incredible,” Renee said. “He’s accelerated what we were doing and we’re grateful.”
COVID impact
Due to COVID-19, the Andersons locked up Bocca Grande on March 15.
“We decided to shut it all down, not do carryout and keep everyone safe,” Renee said. “My 96-year-old mother lives with us.” Living off of food from the restaurant’s supplies during the closure, “we ate like kings.”
When Bocca reopened for carryout-only on May 1, “It was unbelievable. We had to take the phones off the hook. We couldn’t handle it,” Renee said. “We did more dinner business carryout than (normally) with dine-in. We regrouped and had three servers manning the phones.”
On May 28, the restaurant reopened for dine-in service at 50% seating capacity. Carryout still is going strong.
“We feel a lot of responsibility to keep everyone safe,” Renee said. “It’s really hard. A lot of customers tell us they don’t go anywhere to dine in but our place because we’re constantly wiping down. We follow 6-feet distancing. We have air filtration.”
For extra caution, she said, “we take our customers’ temperatures at the door. If you’re over 99 (degrees), you can’t come in.”
Just before COVID hit, the Andersons purchased the circa-1800 house next door on Erie, and plan to have parking in front and a deck for outdoor dining on the back to expand the Bocca Grande experience.
The Andersons, childless by choice, seem plenty content running a busy restaurant together. They do have a two-day weekend of Sunday and Monday each week, and the constant togetherness doesn’t seem to be an issue.
“Here’s how we spend our Sundays,” Larry said. “We go boating together for seven or eight hours on a 20-foot boat on Seneca Lake.”
Reach Dan at 330-580-8306 or [email protected]
On Twitter: @dkaneREP
More Stories
How Substantially Protein Do You Get Or Take in on the Medifast Diet plan?
Pasta Tales Of A Foodstuff Agreement Producer
Nutritious Meal Tips: Green Herbs For Laksa Soup And Pasta Dishes