On Federal Hill, family is the heart of business

One couple leaves reciting all of the ingredients they now have to make traditional lasagna. Another asks about relatives with the DiCiccio name in California. And one customer wanders in asking for postcards from Italy.
“This is why, I believe, today – after 45 years – I’m still in business,” says Tony DiCiccio, owner of Tony’s Colonial Food Store, as he watches the constant flow of patrons walking into his Atwells Avenue store.
Family-owned businesses such as Tony’s Colonial long have been the heart of Federal Hill, and they are still going strong even with an influx of trendy new restaurants and businesses.
For more than four decades, he, his wife, Gina DiCiccio, and now their daughter, Adriane, have been running the business, which he took over in the late 1950s, paying $100 a week for years to the previous owner, who had sold it to him for $25,000.
As the Italian news plays on the television in the store, Tony DiCiccio, 72, explained why he is not afraid of competition on the Hill or of the changes in the neighborhood.
“We were the pioneers of Federal Hill,” he said. Tony’s Colonial was there before Roma Gourmet or Costantino’s Venda Ravioli. With his regular customers and his knowledge of specialty foods throughout Italy, he said, his business keeps growing.
Chris Costantino, whose father, Alan, started Venda Ravioli, said Atwells Avenue has a wealth of history and family tradition, and it is that tradition that has kept these family-run businesses alive among the influx of new restaurants that have taken up a majority of real estate on Federal Hill.
Like DiCiccio, Costantino said he’s not concerned about the new competition.
“There are 35 to 40 restaurants up and down Atwells Avenue that remain busy,” he said. “We feel like competition is good because it brings more people.”
Venda stays strong by being a good neighbor and listening to the older generations, Costantino said. “Provided we all listen to our parents and stay with their idea of business, we will always be on the same page – we stay with what works,” he said.
The Costantinos’ business includes not only the store, an Italian salumeria, but also Costantino’s Ristorante and Caffe and a pasta manufacturing facility that supplies not just Venda, but also many restaurants in the area. The business is doing so well that the family is looking for a location in Boston to expand the business.
Donald Eversley, president of the Providence Economic Development Partnership, a nonprofit group that advises Mayor David N. Cicilline on economic development strategies, said Federal Hill has a unique identity that is greater than any one individual store or merchant, and those family-owned businesses are a big part of it.
“People often say ‘Let’s eat on Federal Hill’ as opposed to a specific place,” he said. “But the old-guard restaurants and businesses have been great because they are the anchors that allow the new ones to innovate and experiment.”
Mark U. Gasbarro, the fourth-generation owner of Gasbarro’s Wines on Atwells Avenue, said the company has survived and thrived for 109 years because people are supportive of family-owned businesses.
“Rhode Island is all about small business, and people are appreciative of the fact that family [businesses] will grow generation to generation, especially in this world of consolidation and corporate buyouts,” Gasbarro said.
Patience and knowing when to change is also part of his success, Gasbarro said. His late father, Lombard, was averse to change, and they had many disagreements.
“They were phenomenal businessmen, but they didn’t like to spend any money,” Gasbarro said of his father and his grandfather, Ugo. His advice to younger generations dealing with the same problem: “Be patient.”