Announcer: The following program was produced in the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross WPSU Production Studio in University Park, Pennsylvania.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: Food, a basic necessity.

Tamra: We all need nutrients to survive and thrive.

Whether your meals come from the field, the fridge, the treasured family recipe, or the takeout menu.

Something special happens when we come together and share a meal and a common bond.

Culinary Connections is where we celebrate the people and places that use food to connect with the world around them.

Today we'll introduce you to Paul Randazzo for Mama Randazzo's in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Paul and mama have been serving Italian cuisine since 2000.

Santina Randazzo: The secret to Italian cooking is put a lot of love in it.

Tamra: Paul Randazzo, welcome to the Culinary Connections kitchen.

Paul Randazzo: Thank you.

Pleasure being here.

Tamra: And later they'll show you how to make their eggplant parmesan.

I'm Tamra Fatemi-Badi, and welcome to Culinary Connections.

Announcer: Support for Culinary Connections is provided in part by Bobby Rahal Honda of State College.

Tom and Sarah Songa of the Torron Group in State College, a proud supporter of programming on WPSU.

More information at Torron Group.com and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Paul Randazzo: My name is Paul Randazzo.

I am owner, operator of Mama Randazzo in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Been here since November 13th, the 2000 and we try to keep it pretty simple here.

Santina Randazzo: People call me mama.

My name is Santina Randazzo.

I love to cook.

I love to bake.

Brooke Adams: [LAUGHTER] Yeah.

Mama- mama is the one that really does everything.

He is the owner but Gary Keagy: Even though Paul's the quintessential boss, I mean, she's- she's the boss of all bosses.

Kayla Corle: Everything goes through mama and everything comes from mama [LAUGHTER].

Alexa Weston: All her recipes everything comes from mama, she's the key.

Tamra: Santina Mama Randazzo grew up on a farm in Sicily, and at 14, immigrated to the Bronx, New York, where because of language barrier was put into the second grade.

Santina Randazzo: They put me with the second grade and I was like almost 14 years old and I was- it was not no good.

I said I want to go to work and that was it.

Tamra: Santina went to work at the Stella D'oro cookie factory in the Bronx, where she met Salvatore Randazzo also from Sicily.

And they married after only a year.

Sal and Santina had two children, Maria and Giuseppe.

And then came the day when Sal went to help out a relative in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Paul Randazzo: My dad was here, he liked what he saw, called my mom and said, ''Hey, I bought a house," She said, ''What are you talking about?''

He said, bought a house in Altoona we're moving and that was the only conversation.

Tamra: Sal and Santina both found work in Altoona and had two more kids, Marco and Paolo.

The three oldest all went to college and then there was Paul.

Paul Randazzo: And then there was me, a little bit of a troublemaker.

I'm the only non college graduate.

I had an idea that I want to open a restaurant at 20, 21 years old.

Santina Randazzo: He also had that dream being in a restaurant business, in a bar business for some reason.

Paul Randazzo: She thought I was crazy.

Continually does think I'm- I'm a little silly.

They lend me $3,000, we went running with it, found a space in the Juniata section in Altoona, and here we are 20 plus years later.

[BACKGROUND] Our culture was be as welcoming and do what we can, and you know food was obviously a big part of that for- for forever.

[NOISE] [BACKGROUND].

One of my best friends is running the kitchen every day.

And I guarantee if you'd ask him, he said he had no idea what he was getting into.

Gary Keagy: We're working together in a bar and he says one day, I'm going to have my own restaurant and I laughed at him.

Paul Randazzo: I said, ''Hey, Gary, I want open a restaurant, would you come work for me when I do that?''

Sure, man.

Awesome.

I was 21, 2021, he was 23.

Gary Keagy: I never thought he would own something like this because we were younger.

Both pretty immature when we met like- like to have fun.

Paul Randazzo: First day he didn't show up, he missed work first day.

Gary Keagy: I kind of overslept day 1.

Slept- I slept through day 1, I actually say so.

[LAUGHTER] Paul Randazzo: So the joke is that Gary's been here since day 2.

Tamra: Although they knew very little about running a restaurant, they knew what they wanted to do.

Paul Randazzo: The whole concept when we started was how do we take what my mom's been doing for x amount of years during her upbringing and- and bring it to a restaurant.

Gary Keagy: In essence, she did bring her whole kitchen in here and all of Paul's grade school buddies and high school friends that I've met through the years they've always said, ''Oh my gosh, it tastes the same as it did 30 years ago''.

Brooke Adams: In fact, Santina Randazzo would play a bigger role in her son's restaurant than she could ever have guessed as the face of Mama Randazzo's Pizzeria.

Paul Randazzo: For whatever reason that logo always was in my head.

Tamra: And how does mama feel about it?

Santina Randazzo: I wasn't happy the beginning, but you know for my son, you know I- I- I'm happy- I'm happy.

Paul Randazzo: First five years wouldn't survived without my parents.

The names and the brands and the logos were always, uh, an homage to them.

Brooke Adams: Sal was my buddy, I miss Sal a lot.

He was really fun.

He always sat at the one table over here in the dining room area all night long and he talked to everybody.

Kayla Corle: Everybody knew him.

Everybody came in, ''Oh hi Sal'' ''Oh hello- hello- hello.''

[LAUGHTER] He was a- he was a character that's for sure.

[BACKGROUND] Dena Pacifico: Mama is the heart and soul of this entire place.

She's in here every morning.

She is back in the kitchen prepping and making everything.

Everything here is homemade.

It's delicious.

Paul Randazzo: My mom's back there today, hand rolling little one ounce meatballs for wedding soup that we make in house.

Santina Randazzo: Mostly I do all the prep to get ready for the day, you know meatball, wedding soup, chicken parm, chicken cutlets.

Paul Randazzo: Were an antiquated model, what I mean by that is, she still butterfly in hand bread or chicken breast of the chicken parm.

We make the breadcrumbs and season our own breadcrumbs.

We still hand roll our meatballs every single day.

Dough is made in house every single day.

Tomato sauce is made every single day and the tomato sauce is a pain in the butt.

It's a 4-5 hour process, because it has to reduce and cook and we still do it every day.

In my opinion, what makes food good is that lack of processing and- and just good ingredients.

Kayla Corle: Our manicotti is to die for.

And I loved our Strombolis whenever I was pregnant.

Alexa Weston: The chicken cutlets are my personal favorite, I put them with just about everything.

The chicken parm is a favorite of mine as well and you can never go wrong with a Stromboli.

Brooke Adams: I usually suggest that mama's cutlets with the Alfredo sauce they're, um, amazing.

[LAUGHTER].

Gary Keagy: Hands down probably the best Alfredo.

[BACKGROUND] Thirty, 40 miles away.

I mean, I've never tasted Alfredo better.

It's good and we sell a lot of it.

Tamra: Family is very important to Mama Randazzo's and the very walls of the restaurant, courtesy of some custom wallpaper, are filled with family history, from mama and Sal's wedding to their grandchildren.

Paul Randazzo: For whatever reason we didn't know it would- it would strike a chord that it did.

It was just about you know family.

Hey, this is our family that's- that's- that's people that come in here are family.

And we believe that, I mean, we- we still that I mean, we've made long lifelong relationships of people that we've never met before that just came in here to eat and other friends.

My mom's best friend, she met through this place.

Santina Randazzo: The connections is very good.

We been have so much support from the community.

They'd been- it wouldn't be for them I don't know what I would have done.

[BACKGROUND].

Paul Randazzo: I defend this town a lot.

It's been great to us, especially Juniata section.

Certainly try support as much as we can.

We tend to lean towards sports.

Reason that is, is just very big part of our lives growing up.

My brothers, my sister all played sports.

Kayla Corle: Well, they know everybody and everybody knows them.

Santina Randazzo: You know we have a really nice group and that's what makes me come really in the morning.

I'm excited to come and see my employee.

They very- so far we've been very lucky.

Dena Pacifico: When they say we're a family, we really are family here.

Every one of us loves and cares about each other on busy nights, we might not always agree with each other, but we all still very much care about each other.

And that says a lot because a lot of us have been here for a long time, we don't go anywhere else.

Alexa Weston: One year, my mom had breast cancer and we threw an event here and Paul and mama were all very helpful in throwing that event and donations and just really making sure that everything ran smoothly.

Brooke Adams: And it was really nice to see everybody come together for that too and she's- her mom's well now.

Paul Randazzo: Here we are.

In 2000, we started with eight tables, set 18 people.

It is 2023 battled through COVID and all these other crazy things that happened and we now seat 87 on the Fire Code.

We're in the midst of new construction our biggest undertaking to date.

We have a two-story multi-use facility that we're building in Juniata, first floor for commercial units.

Second floor is eight residential units.

We're occupying the two largest commercial units in that building.

We have, uh, catering kitchen that we're building there, and an event space.

And then we also are partnering with two local guys to open a brewery called Behe Brothers Brewing Company.

And my sister one time she said, what you did with the restaurant here is you fulfilled mom and dad's dreams when they came in this country that American dream.

To them this was their- their way of- of making- attaining that American dream.

Tamra: Paul Randazzo, welcome to the Culinary Connections Kitchen.

Paul Randazzo: Thank you.

Thank you.

Ah, pleasure being here.

Tamra: Um, can you tell me a little bit about what your favorite foods were as a kid.

Paul Randazzo: Ah, growing up in Altoona , um, you know, is pretty standard American fair and, ah, you know, pasta meat balls and- and ah, things that were more common in- in- in Sicily.

And in- then in New York was a lot of dishes that we couldn't get.

And one of those dishes, ah, would be, ah, like eggplant parmesan, which- which was kind of not common in the area for a long time.

Ah, and that's actually what we're gonna do here today with, ah, with my mom.

Tamra: Yeah.

Paul Randazzo: I actually brought mom herself.

Tamra: Ah, so I was gonna say I noticed you brought someone very special with you.

And so here's mama.

Paul Randazzo: Hi.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: Hi.

Paul Randazzo: We're gonna do eggplant parmesan today.

Ah, I've kept my fire away.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: Okay.

Paul Randazzo: So, ah, we usually get a bunch of eggplant in- and the conversation usually starts with how fresh the eggplant is.

Ah, we'll see if we get lucky or not here.

Um, we normally have a peeler, but we didn't bring that today.

Um, so we're gonna let her do her thing here.

Tamra: Yeah, mama looks pretty good with the knife.

[LAUGHTER] Paul Randazzo: Yeah- yeah- yeah.

Growing up, it was usually a wooden spoon that she chases with not a knife.

[LAUGHTER] But, ah, she knows her way around the kitchen.

That's for sure.

So, um, yes, we started this doing this dish- this is day 1 actually.

And for a long time it was kind of a- mama what would you say?

It's a lot of people didn't really order it.

I mean, we've ordered some here and there.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: In the beginning, we didn't.

Paul Randazzo: We didn't sell a ton, right?

But, um, it's now become one of our most popular dishes, um, ah, obviously people had chicken parmesan.

You know, veal parmesan, I guess to a certain degree, is very popular.

Chicken parmesan probably being the most popular Italian-American dish.

But we've turned a ton of people onto this that would just eat chicken parmesan or just, you know, their standard Italian-American fair to the restaurants.

And- and, you know, a lot of times we talk about or the questions are asked, you know, what- what makes this special or that special?

Um, it's just what she grew up with, ah, fresh ingredients.

Taking care of it.

I'll take it we got lucky.

Look pretty good, mama?

Tamra: What makes a good eggplant?

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: It's the black winter in what's called this.

It's a black winter is, um, not too many seeds because most of you have a seed.

That's where the bitters come from.

So it have to be nice and, you know, sizzling.

And that's how- Paul Randazzo: And that's another reason we actually peel the skin is because that skin if you try to bake or fry that off, it becomes chewy.

It becomes- that- that texture is not really desirable.

Some places will keep it on, We choose not to.

Now normally what we do is we'll do a- a egg and, ah, milk mixture to a- really good showing on there [LAUGHTER] rusty.

Um, but we would normally get that soak for awhile, but actually have the eggplant in there and she would actually let it soak to really permeate into the eggplant and to further tenderize it.

Tamra: Okay.

Paul Randazzo: So what we need to beat that?

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: Yeah.

Got it for.

Paul Randazzo: Yeah.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: I dropped the milk.

Tamra: Do you work together in the kitchen a lot?

Paul Randazzo: We did along- we did- early- early on we definitely were in the kitchen side-by-side.

Ah, now, not as much.

Ah, she's still there every morning.

Ah, Her, Gary, Tina, ah, enricher there every morning, um, and the rest of our staff getting everything ready.

[NOISE] Um, but this is stuff that we did [NOISE] when it was just six of us in the whole restaurant.

[NOISE] Um, and my dad when he was living, would- would after he retired.

Ah, ironically, my dad couldn't cook anything.

Right?

Nothing.

[NOISE] Um, but.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: He was so fat.

Paul Randazzo: Eventually would come in and learn how to do this.

Just to help us out.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: Here you go.

Paul Randazzo: We're gonna place that in a- here ma'am, in a season breadcrumb they actually make in-house.

Um, Mom, correct me if I'm wrong.

It's in here.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: It's a, ah, Romano cheese parmesan [inaudible] black pepper, garlic.

That's it.

Paul Randazzo: Ah, we get these breadcrumbs Cisco's bakery locally.

They do- they do enforce every week.

Give me the oil over.

Give me a few more of that oil.

Tamra: Roughly how many of these eggplants do you sell a day in the restaurant?

These dishes?

Paul Randazzo: As far as full dinner's, on average anywhere between 14-18, just eggplant parmesan dinner a day, ah, which doesn't sound like a ton.

But again, take that on average over the course of the week.

Then over the course of the month and of course of the year, adds up pretty quick.

Tamra: Good.

Paul Randazzo: Let's figure out, burner.

This is here.

We're done here.

So yeah, this is literally what my mom and dad would do [NOISE] every day.

Ah, early on, we first started, ah, in 2000, ah, when we just had eight tables.

It'd be them- it was just those two.

Ah, they'd get there.

Ah, what time would you guess?

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: 4:35 o'clock in the morning.

Paul Randazzo: 4:35 in the morning.

Um, I would not be there that early.

Um, and then now, over time, we've increased size of the restaurant and the size of the kitchen, which allowed us to bring in some additional staff.

With that said, she's still there every day [LAUGHTER] and she's still is doing a demonstrative amount of the work even with our staff there.

And we're lucky to have a great staff and, you know, but she's- I call her quality control.

She still likes to oversee everything we're doing.

Okay ma'am.

I check the oil.

That's a good dish- good- good, ah, comfort dish.

Tamra: Is the- is the stuffing of the eggplant traditionally Sicilian or because I've seen eggplant, that's just eggplant parmesan, but your stuffed one is- is really decadent.

Paul Randazzo: I- I don't know.

Mom what do you think?

Because we grow up.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: That's what my mom.

Tamra: Yeah.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: You know, that's how- how we did it.

Paul Randazzo: And a lot of stuff we do is pretty much based on that, right?

I mean just- how we always did it.

And that sounds- that sounds silly, but it's the only way we knew.

And um, you know, the idea was to bring what she does to everyone.

Santina "Mama" Randazzo: Now, we usually do this.

Tamra: Okay.

So that's pretty quick once the oil gets hot?

Paul Randazzo: Yeah, exactly.

[LAUGHTER] Santina "Mama" Randazzo: Yeah, very- it's very moist.

Tamra: Yeah.

Paul Randazzo: As you can see, we have- we tried to get to like a golden brown.

Um, you know, that'll make it super tender we hope.

Ah, what we did here was, ah, we actually- I did one at the restaurant.

Ah, so this is how it starts, and then from there, we'll take- Santina "Mama" Randazzo: This and that's okay , go like this.

Paul Randazzo: This is ricotta make sure I mentioned.

So we put some in there, that'll go on top and that's exactly what you see here.

Um, and then from there we'll take our sauce.

Mommy get me a spoon from in there.

Thank you.

And this will go into an oven that you guys have back here.

I'll throw in here.

And then that- that gets done.

You have fresh graded mozzarella cheese that we do in-house as well.

It's a mixture of parmesan mozzarella and homemade mozzarella, we just find that the moisture content with the mixture of those two cheese is a little better for us.

What I would normally do is reach my hand on a hot oven.

I shall do now.

We deliberately cover this sheesh, that'll go in.

Obviously this point, they'll be a lot more things going on for us to do, uh, multitasking is the key to- to any, um, you know successful restaurant in our opinion.

The old adage, time to lean time to clean type thing.

Um, my mom certainly multitasks till this day, every day.

I shouldn't know doing their thing so.

I think one of the great things I- I know from being down at the restaurant was that you and Mama tend to come out and actually greet your guests and talk to them.

And it seems like they're all family, you know, so many of them and you have great conversations.

Yeah- yeah No, we certainly enjoyed that part, right?

Yeah, I do.

That's something that, you know, it'll kinda get away from the kitchen.

[LAUGHTER] She could sell the house comes after work and it comes out and hangs out there.

And we've met people at what, seven, eight years old now they're.

Yeah.

You know, we've done their weddings.

They'll come up with their parents when they're 4, 5, 6.

And I think it was a girl a couple of years ago.

We actually did her wedding, so I -I, um, we met her when she was six and then she got married like 24.

And we did a reception a good reception for and from day one when my dad lent me money and then we got a loan from a bank to when we purchased the property, they actually had to guarantee the loan.

I was only 24.

Twenty.

No we bought the property.

I was 24 were falling profit when we opened the restaurant I was 2021.

They actually had to guarantee and put their house up for.

And then in 2009, we finally it took them off.

So then that stress of hanging over their heads and the bank, you know, thankfully gave me the loan and stuff like that.

But, um I don't think we ever envisioned what we have become, um, we still feel that were pretty small restaurant and moms part shop but- but yes so to your point.

Very stressful, but it's- it's been a- it's been a very, um, organic sequence of events.

You know, we got in this building and 2000, we open a beer shop in 2004 named Sal six packs after my dad.

Um, and then in 2007, we started moving to a process of trying to put an addition on clean up the- the space that we purchased 2009, that came to fruition.

And then we stayed in that iteration of what we were until 2017 and then 2017 we went through another, uh, round of construction.

We added a bar and some new toys in the kitchen.

And unfortunately, that's when we lost my dad.

He- he got see the bar once twice, had a few glass of wine.

Um, and now for us, the next progression was okay, we we pretty much have outgrown this place.

What to do next?

And to her point shows one of her room she wanted to facility.

So this is where we're at.

Let me see what we're doing back here.

Yep.

All right.

There we go.

I'm going to steal that spatula right there.

You know the restaurant that'd be shared with the side of pasta, um, side salad, and some fresh made bread.

And there you have it, uh, Eggplant Parmesan from Mama Randazzo's and Mama herself cooking it.

Tamra: Thank you so much to Mama and Paul from Mama Randazzo's.

And now to keep things rolling along, we're going to talk about another Italian tradition.

Of course, I'm talking about the meat ball.

Paul Randazzo: Meat balls are always kind of our signature item.

There are about six ounce size of a baseball.

And people are always like, these are huge.

These are amazing textures are awesome.

Well, how do you guys do it?

We thought everyone had meatballs that size.

That's probably grew up.

We didn't know any different.

And they became kind of their own thing of.

Radio Announcer: Its head, it fires again, Gorski swings and crushes one.

Paul Randazzo: Uh, the Altoona curve came to us a couple of years ago, I think five years ago now.

And they had an idea and a marketing idea that they would utilize at the stadium about using meatballs as characters to race around the stadium.

[BACKGROUND] Were very sports oriented, were we don't take ourselves too seriously.

So we now have three meatballs- three meatball characters named after my siblings, uh, Maria, Giuseppe, Marco.

They all have their own look of my sisters got spaghetti hair.

My brother Marco, who was a baseball player, is dressed as a baseball player.

And my brother Giuseppe.

Can you just said It's just a good old fashioned old school mustache with a plaid apron and a chef's hat.

They chase each other around the stadium.

Every game- every home game.

[BACKGROUND] In some high jinx and sues.

We've- we've had meatballs get clothesline, we've had meatballs get trip.

We've had meatballs get hit with a metal chairs, especially the kids in the same really seem to matter.

And we certainly need to.

Meatball races are just one more way that Mama Randazzo's makes a culinary connection with the community.

But whether it's Meatballs, Stromboli or Eggplant Parmesan.

Their authentic imprint is on everything they make.

So we just had to ask, what's the secret to good Italian food?

From coming from a Sicilian and myself, I'd say the love that you've put into it, and there's no lack thereof love here.

The secret to good Italian food is love and homemade.

Never giving your secret out.

The secret to good Italian food is Mama.

[LAUGHTER].

Well, the secret Italian cooking is, put a lot of love in it.

And that's what I've been doing.

Tamra: From Sicily to the Bronx, to Altoona, to the table.

Everything comes from Mama.

Thanks for watching Culinary Connections.

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