When troops from Minneapolis began returning home after World War II, they discovered they missed one thing about Europe. Sliding into booths at the Casino Cafe on North 7th, they'd ask owner and chef James Graziano if he could make them a pizza.
Graziano had begun his cooking career while in the service, feeding troops going through boot camp at Fort Snelling. He wanted to oblige the returning soldiers, so he began trying to make pizza worthy of his Sicilian heritage.
"He burned out a couple of standard ovens that couldn't stay hot enough," said his son, Daniel, of the necessary 500-plus degrees. Undaunted, Graziano traveled to a Chicago trade show and returned with an authentic pizza oven. In 1945, his cafe became the first in Minneapolis to serve pizza.
"That's what we were always told, anyway," Daniel said of his father, who died Dec. 13 in Minneapolis, a month short of turning 100.
Graziano's pizzas were unusual in that he shaped them as rectangles, and he also was known for the meatball sandwiches, antipasto salad and platters of baked mostaccioli that emerged from his kitchen.
The Casino Cafe, which he'd opened in 1943 at 12 N. 7th St., merged in 1955 with the nearby Venice Cafe. For the next 28 years, Graziano fed crowds who came downtown for a movie at the World Theater next door, or for shows and concerts at venues up and down Hennepin Avenue.
Police ate there for free, "which was one of the reasons the place always was very well-behaved," said another son, Vincent.
Graziano was born Jan. 16, 1916, in Portland, Ore., to parents who'd immigrated from Sicily. They soon moved to Minneapolis, settling in the Italian neighborhood around Morgan Avenue and Olson Highway. He graduated from North High School and enlisted in the service, but bad knees kept him in Minneapolis, and led to his career as a restaurateur. "He was at the cafe six days a week," Vincent recalled. "He was home Tuesday nights, which is really the only way you can run a restaurant."
