Raffaele Pezzella Sr. died Jan. 27 at the age of 90, and in his place remain three generations of Pezzellas to take care of the family business, Pezzella's Villa Napoli, a restaurant that's considered to be a Sunnyvale landmark.

Not only is the restaurant a family affair, it's also been a longtime gathering place for local residents.

The restaurant dates back to the mid-1950s. In 1956 Raffaele sold his Italian grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y. and moved to the Bay Area with his wife, Francesca, and their two sons, Pat and Vince. The couple started Villa Napoli, a small diner, in Sunnyvale in 1957 on W. El Camino Real, where Debbie Lyn's Costumes is now located.

At that time, Sunnyvale was a mix of orchards and farmland.

Pat remembers the day Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) opened a branch office next door to Villa Napoli. "When Lockheed started, they owned a little office right next to us, when El Camino had only two lanes," he recalls. At that time, highways 280, 85 and 880 did not exist.

Pat says he didn't particularly like Sunnyvale when he first came here. "There was nothing here but acres and acres of farmland," he says. "It was a culture shock. There weren't even street corners."

But as Pat and Vince went to high school and met other boys their age, they started to enjoy themselves. "The kids were all great. To this day those friends we went to school with, still come in here, and their kids and their grandkids are coming into the restaurant," says Pat.

Which bodes well for the Pezzella brothers, who say that the restaurant has always been about family—and extended family, which includes friends that continue to visit from all over the country.

Now Pat and Vince look after the restaurant, along with Vince's children, who work in the kitchen. Vince says working at the restaurant is almost like a party that never ends. "How many people get to see a lot of friends and have fun every day? Most of the time we're laughing and joking about stuff," Vince says.

It's not all fun and games, though. "Sometimes the equipment breaks down, or the orders don't come in right. Which is OK because it breaks up the monotony and keeps us busy," Vince says.

Other members of the Pezzella family work in the restaurant as well, which Pat and Vince say takes a big burden off their shoulders. Vince's two children, Raffaele Jr. and Maria, both work in the kitchen, cooking as well as managing the pantry, while their mother, Tencha, works as a hostess. Pat's wife, Marcie, also works as a hostess, and even Raffaele Jr.'s wife, Kaysie, occasionally comes into the restaurant to run errands, all the while looking after her two daughters, the late Raffaele Sr.'s great-grandchildren, Gianna and Capri.

Vince Pezzella says, "It really is a family operation, and the people that are working here have been with us for 20 to 25 years."

The Pezzellas owe their success of almost 50 years to their ability to change with the times. With the initial diner, Pat Pezzella says, the family kept the dishes simple, because no one in the area was familiar with Italian food. "Over the years they acquired the taste," Pat says. Later the family expanded the menu, incorporating authentic Italian dishes as well as more modern dishes.

When the family first moved to Sunnyvale, the population was just under 20,000. Now the population is nearly 132,000, and the residents have different tastes. The brothers say they try to accommodate their customers' tastes by providing them with what they ask for, even if it's not on the menu.

In 1975 the family bought property across the street from Villa Napoli and opened Pezzella's Villa Napoli at 1025 W. El Camino Real, which was more of an upscale restaurant that the family helped construct from the ground up. The name "Pezzella" was added to the restaurant to distinguish it from other local Italian restaurants.

Pat says customers can order anything they want, as long as the kitchen has the ingredients. "You can create your own pasta and your own dishes. You want this kind of pasta with these vegetables? You got it," Pat says.

Sunnyvale resident Chic Manasseri, the Pezzella brothers' friend and longtime customer, says that he often orders a dish that is not on the menu—prawns fra diablo, which translates to "shrimp from the devil." Manasseri likes the spicy sauce, which the Pezzellas named carmine sauce after their childhood friend Carmine, who likes spicy foods.

With the growing Indian population in Sunnyvale, Vince says, the restaurant gets a lot of vegetarians. "We go out of our way to provide vegetarian meals. Because of our religious background, we didn't eat meat on Fridays, so we can understand other people's dietary needs," Vince says.

The restaurant provides other types of foods on special occasions. Sometimes the chefs will prepare chicken curry, Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo and corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day.

The Pezzellas do this, they say, because they want to cater to their customers' needs and to create a family environment that people will want to return to. Pat says, "It's nice to know that you get taken care of while you're there. Whether it's 40 years or two weeks or one day, you're family."

Manasseri says the best thing about Pezzella's Villa Napoli, besides the food, is the people he's met. "Everybody that's a regular is like family. We travel together, socialize together and take care of each other," Manasseri says.

Which seems to be the reason why people keep coming back to the restaurant. Customers say being at Pezzella's is like being with family. What Raffaele Pezzella Sr. started almost 50 years ago is now a piece of Sunnyvale history, and a tribute to his dream—a family tradition that future generations will carry on.