Three nights a week, a couple dozen people gather in a nondescript white brick building on Miles Avenue, suit up in white jackets and gloves and hair nets and crank out about four tons of sausage destined for grocery stores across Northeast Ohio.
About half of those people are related to the owners, Joe and Frank (who goes by Cheech) Vinciguerra, or to someone who has worked with them for years.
Much has changed since their father, Lou, moved his company, Lou’s Gourmet Sausage, into the building in 1962. Lou wouldn’t recognize some of the machinery that Joe and Cheech have invested in over the years, replacing cast iron with stainless steel and adding weeks to the life of each link with modern packaging technology.
But some things remain frozen in time. Like Lou did, they grind the peppercorns and crack the fennel seeds in-house. The only thing they’ve changed about the recipe that their grandfather brought from Sicily is reducing the salt content. Refrigeration made it unnecessary.
“It was instilled in you as a kid,” said Cheech, “your work ethic and everything else. ‘This is the way it’s done. There are no other ways.’”
“Little by little’ a sausage business grows
Lou Vinciguerra owned a market in downtown Cleveland, near where the Cavaliers and Guardians play today, from the 1920s until 1946. He sold some imported Italian products and some that were homemade, including sausage. His oldest son, also named Lou, went on to work for a food wholesaler. In his travels, people were constantly telling him how much they missed the old store.
“They’d go, ‘Lou, can you get me some of that sausage that you guys used to make down there?’” said Joe, Lou’s oldest son. “This is how the thing started, little by little. ‘Give me five pounds of this. Give me three pounds of this.’ And he’d be delivering it while he was on his route.”
Eventually Lou partnered with a market owner on Kinsman and made the sausage in the back of the store. But when they caught the attention of the old Pick-N-Pay supermarket chain, they purchased the building on Miles and went all in.
Lou’s and his partner’s kids were like cousins. “We all grew up together,” said Joe. “We all worked in the sausage business with them, making boxes and stuff as little kids, six, seven years old.”
Around 1980, Lou’s partner sold his share to Joe and Cheech. Pick-N-Pay went under, but chains that took over those stores started calling because customers were demanding to know why they weren’t stocking Lou’s sausage. Over time they got into Alesci’s, Acme, Buehler’s, Meijer, Marc’s, Galliucci’s and Heinen’s. Heinen’s offered the chance to become the first manufacturer in Ohio to meet the standards to ship across state lines to supply the chain’s Chicago-area stores.
They’ve also expanded the product line from their staples, hot and mild Italian, to include Sicilian, Andouille, Cajun, breakfast and chicken and veal options.
They were in Kroger stores when that chain served Northeast Ohio. If they reunite — Kroger plans to buy Giant Eagle stores — the Lou’s Gourmet Sausage team will add a fourth night of production.
‘Our lives are invested in this place’
Joe’s son Joe and Cheech’s son Tim have been working in the family business since they were kids, and full-time since graduating from college. They’ll take over someday, but even at 78 and 77, their fathers aren’t quite ready to retire.
“We’ve been talking about it for years,” Cheech said. “But it’s hard to let go, the way the economy is, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
And they would miss it. In their office, their desks are pushed together so they face each other under a photo of their father.
“Our lives are invested in this place,” said Joe. “Me and him, we’ve been together 75, 76, years now. We’ve never had an argument.” When they disagree, Joe throws up his hands, they walk away from each other and work it out later, Cheech explained.
Joe is the people person, the salesman and deal maker. He loves to talk. Cheech is quieter and mechanically inclined, comfortable in the background, keeping everything running. That’s part of the secret of their success.
“He’s my brother and my best friend,” said Joe, revealing the other part, his eyes a little misty.
“Likewise,” said Cheech. “It’s been a nice run all these years, and I think we have a lot to be proud of here.”
