(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's time now for StoryCorps. As we head into Labor Day weekend, we have a story of the work it took to run a pizzeria. In 1973, Italian immigrants Luigi Lanzo and his wife, Teodora, opened Luigi's Pizza in Brooklyn, New York. Their five children now carry on the family business. Three of them - Giovanni, Marisa and Lisa - came to StoryCorps to remember their parents and how they started a neighborhood institution.
GIOVANNI LANZO: I remember my father going to work in the cemetery 8 to 5, and then 5 to 4 in the morning in a pizzeria. He did that seven days a week. And my mother used to say, he comes home to make babies.
MARISA LANZO: (Laughter).
G LANZO: My mother had a sewing machine in the bedroom. She would make collars and belts. It was called piecework. And then at one point, Mommy came to work in the pizzeria.
M LANZO: Yeah. My father's name is on the pizzeria. And, yes, my father worked like an animal for it. But in all honesty, my mother was the wizard behind the curtain.
G LANZO: Yep, she stretched everything. My father would give my mother the money. My mother would save it. That they would go out, God forbid.
M LANZO: It was a wake or a wedding.
G LANZO: That's it.
M LANZO: (Laughter).
G LANZO: In the pizzeria, I remember Daddy wore dress shoes and long pants. Daddy never wore shorts behind...
M LANZO: Or block shoes.
G LANZO: Never.
M LANZO: I remember they had to be pointy.
G LANZO: Well, you know why? Daddy always said, growing up, I never had shoes. Now I have shoes. And so he went to work in dress shoes every day.
M LANZO: There's pride in it.
G LANZO: Yeah. Daddy made his own way without stepping on...
M LANZO: And helped other people.
G LANZO: And helped a lot of other people.
M LANZO: How many other people? Always.
G LANZO: And I'll never forget, at the funeral for my mother, this girl turns around and says, you know, I had to come because when my father lost his job for five or six months, we ate in your store every day. When her father finally got a job, he went to pay Daddy and he said, no, don't worry about it. He wouldn't take the money. Mommy and Daddy instilled in us, you know, if you do good, forget it. If you do wrong, think of it every day of your life. Mommy and Daddy prepared us for everything in life except them leaving. You know, it's funny, the pizzeria hasn't changed.
M LANZO: The outside.
G LANZO: I won't change it. The paneling, the red clay tiles.
M LANZO: Yeah, well, Mommy and Daddy, I mean, they're there.
G LANZO: Yeah, that's what I feel.
M LANZO: They're there.
G LANZO: All I want to see is Daddy's name forever up there. It's never going to be Giovanni's. People say, why don't you put your name on the sign? Because if I could be 1% of Daddy, I'd be the greatest person in the world. That's how I feel.
MARTIN: That's Giovanni Lanzo with his sisters Marisa Lanzo and Lisa Lanzo Deluca for StoryCorps in Brooklyn, New York. Their interview is archived at the Library of Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF DANIELE BENATI, LUIGI SCIALDONE AND MARCO PRATI'S "PIZZA MIMOSA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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