michael bomarito – Memphis Flyer

I recently discovered two things I didn’t know about Pete & Sam’s Italian restaurant.

The stuffed celery I’ve seen on the menu for decades is absolutely delicious.

And they have a great T-shirt bearing a picture of the late Sam Bomarito as “The Godfather” from the 1972 movie of the same name.

First, the stuffed celery. Someone in the group I was with recently ordered it. It comes with black olives, peppers, and lots of lettuce with paprika sprinkled around. You get four celery sticks.

I was blown away. I took a photo and posted it on Facebook. As of this writing, that post has 222 “likes,” 69 comments, and four shares. And you know how we all like “likes.”

I called Sammy Bomarito, one of the restaurant owners, to ask him about the history of their stuffed celery and the T-shirts with the picture of his father, one of the founders of the restaurant.

The gorgonzola cheese-based celery sticks filling includes mayonnaise, garlic, and green onions, Sammy says. “We’ve always had it on the menu,” he says. “It’s been on the menu for as long as I can remember.”

He’s not sure who put it on the menu, but he thinks it was “one of Miss Vita’s dishes.” That’s the late Vita Gattuso, Sam’s sister. “Something she came up with.”

It seems like I’ve seen the stuffed celery sticks on the menu forever, but I never ordered them. “It’s always been popular,” Sammy says. “It’s kind of one of those hidden things. If you’re zipping over the appetizers your eye might go to the toasted raviolis or something else. But it’s always been there.”

When I went to Pete & Sam’s the other night so server Gabe Roberts could take a photo of me for the story, I asked server Nick Musarra about the stuffed celery. He says, “I sold six or seven of them last night.”

Stuffed celery at Pete & Sam’s (Credit: Michael Donahue)

As for those T-shirts, they’ve been around for four years, Sammy says. His brother, Michael Bomarito, also an owner of the restaurant, designed it. “It was based on The Godfather and he substituted Sam’s picture for it.”

The T-shirts have been “very popular,” Sammy says. “We’ve had probably four or five T-shirt runs on those, for sure.”

And, he says, they’ve probably sold 1,000 of the T-shirts over the years.

So, slip on a T-shirt and kick back with a tray of stuffed celery sticks and maybe a basket-wrapped bottle of chianti and imagine Nino Rota’s theme from The Godfather playing in the background.

But it might have to contend with one of Pete & Sam’s Frank Sinatra recordings.

Pete & Sam’s is at 3886 Park Avenue; (901) 458-0694

A total of 550 plates of Pete & Sam’s spaghetti were donated to Memphis Catholic Charities of West Tennessee.

The staggering number of unemployed people in the United States due to coronavirus led to 550 plates of Pete & Sam’s spaghetti being dispersed around Memphis on Wednesday, April 15th.

“I was driving to work looking at the unemployment number — 6 million throughout the nation filed for it,” says Michael Bomarito, an owner of the popular Memphis restaurant.

So, he says, “We need to step up and do something. We’ve been blessed with this restaurant after the fire.”

Pete & Sam’s was closed for about five months after a fire broke out early December 12th, 2017.

Then Bomarito says, “Look. If we’re going to do it, let’s cook a whole batch of sauce and give it away. We know we can knock that out very quickly in one morning.”

He contacted Memphis Catholic Charities of West Tennessee executive director Kelly Henderson, who was happy to get the spaghetti.

Bomarito wanted to cook 28 gallons of the meat sauce. “That’s one batch of our meat sauce — beef, whole tomatoes, celery, onions, spices, cheese, parmesan cheese, secret stuff we can’t share.”

They cooked the pasta the night before. “We cooked 70 pounds. That’s 70 dry pounds that turns into 160 wet pounds. That’s more of a pain than making the sauce. You get big vats of boiling water of spaghetti noodles and try to get it out without scalding yourself. And you have to do that seven times.”

The sauce was made the day of the giveaway. “We got the sauce going about 5 a.m. this morning. It was ready by 10. We started plating the food around 10:30, and it was done by 11:15.”

Henderson “came with a van and picked it up,” Bomarito says.

Michael Bomarito, Kelly Henderson, Sammy Bomarito

“About 200 of the meals were delivered door to door to our clients who are under our care,” Henderson says. “These are people who are formerly homeless but now have a home because of our work. And the rest of the food was distributed with our partnerships with St. Patrick’s, St. Mary’s, and St. Vincent de Paul. So, two churches and one other agency who are all serving the homeless.”

Asked how he felt about the restaurant’s gesture, Henderson says, “I thought it was a tremendous act of generosity. So many restaurants are struggling to keep their doors open and you get a random call from the owner of Pete & Sam’s saying, ‘Hey, we can make a big batch of spaghetti, and we can feed some people who rely on you.’ It really shows the solidarity of the community.”

Did Bomarito eat any of that spaghetti? “No. I looked at the last of the spaghetti and didn’t want any of it.”