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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Delicious Crust: Giorgio's Kitchen Manager Gabriel Bejar spins a pie before the lunchtime rush. Giorgio's, located in the Foxworthy Plaza Shopping Center, has been a Willow Glen mainstay since 1959.
A Taste of Italy in WG
By Jim Aquino
Located at Willow Glen's Foxworthy Shopping Center, the 42-year-old Giorgio's Italian Food and Pizzeria is such a favorite among South Bay pizza enthusiasts that on a recent rainy Sunday morning, several customers braved the weather to wait outside for the restaurant to open at noon.
"Once people go there, they tend to want to come back," says Giorgio's spokeswoman Mary Anne Fallon.
The citysearch.com website's Silicon Valley restaurant review section includes a page about Giorgio's, and the posts on the page's message board illustrate how much of an institution this family restaurant is for many San Joseans. One forty-something poster who praises the quality and freshness of the pizza, pastas and baked bread mentions that he has dined there since he was 5 years old. Another poster says that Giorgio's is "Willow Glen's best-kept secret."
Originally run by both the D'Ambrosio and Volpe families, Giorgio's opened in 1959 in the same location it has occupied for 42 years, 1445 Foxworthy Ave. Since 1968, brothers Don, Nick, Frank and John D'Ambrosio have owned Giorgio's. Over the years, the D'Ambrosios formed a Bay Area Italian restaurant empire that also includes a second Giorgio's in Milpitas, Nicolino's Garden Cafe in Sunnyvale and the Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too! franchise.
"We have customers who come from Morgan Hill," says Fallon, who explains that the original Giorgio's attracts customers from all over the valley. "It's pretty amazing because it's a very quaint restaurant. It's very warm and friendly."
An example of the restaurant's friendly demeanor is its open kitchen, which allows customers to watch from their tables as the chefs toss the pizza dough and prepare the pies.
Fallon says customers often praise the chewy pizza crust. "Our crust is handmade. We get comments on the crust all the time," Fallon says. "Tossing the crust into the air allows the air to get inside it as it expands. It makes the crust lighter and more airy."
According to Fallon, the most popular pies at Giorgio's are: plain pepperoni, Frank's Fiasco (toppings include salami, pepperoni, sausage and mushroom), Giorgio's Special (Italian sausage, mushroom, pepperoni and salami) and New York Style (which is named after one of the D'Ambrosios' other ventures, the New York Style Sausage Company, because its main topping is the company's sausage).
Giorgio's also serves salads, calzones and pastas for diners with more on their minds than just pizza. Popular pastas include lasagna, gamberi fiore with cappellini (tiger prawns and shrimp, sautéed with garlic, white wine, fresh basil and tomato served on a bed of angel hair pasta) and the rigatoni pasta salad.
Fallon was a teenager when she first dined at Giorgio's and became enamored with the restaurant's pizza and lasagna. She says that when she was younger, there weren't a lot of Italian restaurants in San Jose, so Giorgio's helped fill a void.
"The big surge in the pizza business and Italian restaurants really started in the '70s," Fallon says. "When I was in high school, there were not as many pizza places as there are today. So when you wanted Italian food, you really had to go look for it."
Today, pizzerias are everywhere in the South Bay, but only a few are as acclaimed as Giorgio's. "Once you have a pizza from Giorgio's, it's like you can't go back to eating pizza someplace else," Fallon says. "It ruins you!"
Giorgio's, 1445 Foxworthy Ave., is open Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Fridays, 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Saturday, noon-11 p.m., and Sunday, noon-10 p.m. For more information, call 408.264.5781 or visit www.giorgiossanjose.com.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
