Willow Glen, California Since 1992
Cafe Willow Glen
Sausage factory represents a piece of Willow Glen history By Staci L. Jameson Leo and Nancy Vinciguerra have been married almost 40 years. They grew up in Campbell, across the street from each other. They were high-school sweethearts, and they have worked together for most of their marriage at Leo's Badalamente Sausage Factory. Leo's parents purchased the factory from the Badalamente brothers in the 1940s. Vinciguerra has owned the factory since 1977. He decided to keep the name as well as the style in which the sausages have always been prepared. Since the beginning of the Badalamente Sausage Factory, all of the work (with the exception of the meat grinding) has been done by hand. "You know the quality better when you do the work by hand," says Vinciguerra. "The meat is brought in. We put it in the refrigerator until we're ready to make the sausages. We weigh it out, add our spices for whichever type of sausage we're making at the time and then put it into the meat press," Vinciguerra explains. The meat press is the old-fashioned water-pressure type. The meat is then pushed into the casing and then the sausages are twisted by hand to make the individual links. There is no freezer at Badalamente Sausage Factory. The sausages are made for orders placed by local Willow Glen restaurants. Gene's Market in Saratog and Lunardi's Markets are two of Badalamente Sausage Factory's regular customers. Each day, Badalamente is inspected by the USDA to ensure that there are no problems. And there haven't been. "We clean everything," says Vinciguerra. "We check it all ourselves, and we clean the whole place everyday, from the floor to the ceiling." Vinciguerra has been involved with sausage in one way or another for most of his life. As a small boy he would help his grandparents make sausages at the factory. For about 20 years Vinciguerra worked at Stevens Meat Product company and also spent a couple of years as a USDA meat inspector. "I think I took the inspector job when I was too young. I needed to be out and moving around more than I was," says Vinciguerra. There is a small deli in the front of the store with a large selection of pastas that can be purchased, as well as sodas. But most of what is sold is the sausage for which Badalamente has become famous. "We used to have a full deli where we made sandwiches and things, but business slowed down on that end, and now we just sell sausages and some really good cheeses," says Vinciguerra. "We have five kinds of sausage here. There's the hot or mild Italian sausage, the hot or mild turkey sausage and what we call Little Porky's which are the small breakfast sausages," says Nancy Vinciguerra. The Vinciguerra family works together. Their daughters, Lisa Taormina and Cathy Rose work with their parents making and delivery the nearly 1,500 pounds of sausage a day. "The only thing that could make our business better would be to have a couple of the Shark's hockey players come in here once in a while," says Nancy Vinciguerra with a smile on her face. "We love the Sharks!" Leo Badalamente Sausage Factory, 374 Willow Ave. Open Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Special orders are available and take about two days to fill. For more information, call 408.294.7115. |
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