Raffetto’s, 120 Years Young

By Jack Lourie

Raffetto’s
144 West Houston Street

What are some fun facts about this pasta shop? They have had a pasta machine that cuts noodles (“the guillotine”) since 1916. The have had same phone number since 1920. And, they have a sales ledger, where Andrew Raffetto affectionately realized that the grandparents of one of his childhood friends owed his grandfather, Marcello Raffetto, $6.50.

The shop was opened in 1906 by Marcello, who purchased the building for $10,000. At that time, there had been a wave of Italian immigration. And with them came their incredible pasta. Raffetto’s was a beacon, serving both the neighborhood and the greater tri-state area. Lacking refrigeration, Marcello dried his store’s pasta, then shipped it.

Romana “Nana” Raffetto, Marcello’s daughter, was the second generation in the Raffetto’s line. She brought her famous recipes when it was her turn to run the shop. And though Romana passed in 2018, her legacy lingers, from the homemade sauces to the enticingly sharp aroma of Genoa toast. Even the wooden chair where she rested in her later years remains in place, ensuring that her presence is always felt.

“Once we told her how to measure things and write it down properly so that we could recreate her recipe,” recalled Andrew, Romana’s son and third generation store owner. “We [tried] her recipe, and it came out terrible. And we did it two or three times. Finally, she came back from the country house upstate. And the second she took her cup, not the official measuring cup, we realized what had happened. So funny.”

Andrew set the stage for the family business to be enjoyed by even more loyal customers when he started a Raffetto’s factory in New Jersey. He steered the store through the 2008 recession as well as COVID. Another concern was keeping up with fad diets like the low-carb Atkins diet popular in the early 2000s and today’s interest in GLP-1. They hope that folks will still reach for the lobster ravioli. But the nationwide shipping, thanks to the factory, helps their products reach wider audiences.

Andrew’s daughter and fourth generation Raffetto, Sarah, has put her new stamp on the business. She finds creative ways to make the business money, while staying true to the family’s cultural heritage. She has introduced sandwiches, gelato, merch, and even the “Petite Pasta Joint,” where pop-up dinners happen in Raffetto’s after the shop closes. Sarah gets to share bits of the family history throughout these meals.

To celebrate Raffetto’s turning 120, Andrew and I walked around the neighborhood. He talked with a longing, happy appreciation of what the Village was when he was raising Sarah. He reminisced about the Children’s Aid Society playground, Shel Silverstein’s disparate target audiences, and the tiny old office of a longtime neighborhood dentist, Dr. Lois Jackson. We went inside Porto Rico, a provider of coffee and tea that was founded in 1907, one year after Raffetto’s. (Andrew jokingly calls the store, “their little sibling.”) He could point to tile patterns in the ceiling that marked when the store was half its current size.

The infrastructure of the community was strong enough for Andrew to navigate being a single dad, relying on Children’s Aid for its after-school programs. “I appreciated having an after-school program for $300 for three months. And for $5 extra, they would walk (each kid) from school to here,” he said. It’s where Sarah befriended Andrew’s future stepdaughter, and how he met his future wife, another single parent. They now have three kids together. “I won’t be retiring anytime soon,” Andrew chuckled.

But when it comes to creating or maintaining a business these days, Andrew holds a lot of sympathy for his neighbors, both old and new. “It’s hard for any restaurant or bar to get past that five- or ten-year lease. And I don’t understand certain things. Like you just raised the rent and you drove someone away. And then you have zero rent. Why don’t you just make 10, 12, or 14 thousand a year? Why’d you make it 20? I don’t know, there must be a piece of the puzzle I’m missing ─ because mathematically, I don’t follow it.”

In many ways this confusion makes sense for Raffetto’s because while they are always looking for new ways to expand their business, they don’t look to pass costs on to their consumers. They are their own landlords, their pasta is cheap, and even items available in grocery stores, manage to be the cheapest in Raffetto’s.

In many ways, Andrew has seen a different Greenwich Village than the one we see today. He remembers the gratitude that he felt for places such as Children’s Aid. So, when given the choice, he charges as little as possible.

Something tells me that Andrew won’t be following up to get the $6.50 his friend’s grandfather owed Marcello Raffetto.