Lost Tables: Amighetti's

Amighetti's

In August of 1911, a building permit was issued by the City of St. Louis to Alex Maretta for a one-story brick bakery at 5111 Daggett. By 1917, the bakery was operated by Louis I. Amighetti.

Born as Luigi Amighetti in 1892 in northern Italy, the young baker immigrated to the United States in 1913. He married Mary Miriana in 1920, and their son, Louis D. Amighetti, was born at 5111 Daggett on September 23, 1921.

5111 Daggett, June 2011

By the end of 1921, the Amighettis had moved their home and bakery to 5141 Wilson, across from St. Ambrose Church. Rita Amighetti was born in 1922 and Gloria in 1926. While the three Amighetti children all grew up working in the family bakery, it was Louis who joined his father as the heir apparent.


Louis I. Amighetti, 1927	Louis D. Amighetti, late 1930s

St. Louis Star and Times, Dec 7, 1937

Louis Jr. married Angela Ribaudo in the summer of 1941. They had three children – Beverly, Mary Catherine and Louis III. The marriage would end in divorce.

Louis Amighetti Jr. took over operation of the bakery from his father in 1951. Louis Amighetti Sr. died on April 22, 1956 at the age of 63. His wife Mary died on January 6, 1958.

Amighetti's Bakery, 5141 Wilson

Louis "Junior" Amighetti worked 15-hour days in his bakery at an old-fashioned brick hearth oven, turning out hundreds of loaves of Italian bread.

People brought up on sliced commercial bread don't know what really good bread is. Once they've tried it, they know the difference. Good Italian bread cannot be produced commercially to be sold in supermarkets, because the bread would lose that crustiness that is so much a part of it.
Italian breads differ slightly because every province and town of Italy makes its bread from a different formula. But all Italian breads are white breads, and all use only sesame seeds as toppings.
Italian bread is meant to accompany a meal so it can be used to wipe up the last bit of salad dressing in the bowl or the remains of sauce on a dinner plate.

Bread is a creative effort. It requires patience and loving care. I never criticize anyone's bread, because everyone has a little bit of himself in his bread.

Louis "Junior" Amighetti with his legendary Italian bread

August 16, 1970 was Hill Day in the Italian section of southwest St. Louis. Louis Amighetti had been awake since 10 p.m. the night before, mixing and kneading dough and baking the mixture into long loaves, Roman stick breads and a variety of other forms. Hill Day visitors were fascinated by Amighetti's bread display.

But by 1970, Amighetti's was already evolving from a neighborhood bakery into a restaurant that boasted the best sandwich in St. Louis. The force behind this transition was Marge Baudo.

"I hired her as a part-time bookkeeper and she took over my business," said Amighetti.

Amighetti's Bakery, 5141 Wilson

Marjorie Eileen Sanders was born in McLean, Illinois in 1927. She grew up on a farm in Bloomington with her parents and two older sisters.

Daughters Mary Kathleen, Marjorie Eileen & Phyllis Charlene, with Ernest & Jewel Sanders
The Bloomington Daily Pantagraph, Jul 4, 1941

On November 22, 1943, 16-year-old Marjorie Sanders married 19-year-old Heyward Logsdon. On January 17, 1945, their daughter Sheryl Dianne was born. Marjorie Logsdon was divorced by July of 1947.

On July 17, 1948, 20-year-old Marjorie Logsdon married 18-year-old Ralph Prather in the presence of immediate relatives. On December 23, 1948, their daughter Judith Lynn was born. Marjorie Prather was divorced on June 2, 1950.

Marjorie Prather married Horace B. Tomlin on November 3, 1950. Marjorie was employed in the advertising department of the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph. Tomlin was a chemist at Ralston-Purina. This marriage also ended in divorce.

On March 24, 1960, a marriage license was issued for Marjorie E. Tomlin and Dominic. J. Baudo. Baudo's home was at 5119 Daggett on The Hill – two doors down from the original Amighetti's Bakery at 5111 Daggett, where Louis Amighetti Jr. was born.

By the time Marge Baudo applied for the part-time bookkeeper position at Amighetti's Bakery, she was once again divorced. She and Louis Amighetti began living as husband and wife by 1969, but she wouldn't officially become Marge Amighetti until July 2, 1978 in Las Vegas. This marriage would last 23 years.


Marge Amighetti, late 1960s	Louis Amighetti Jr.

Marge Amighetti did indeed "take over" her husband's business.

We had this wonderful bread, and I just knew there was something more we could be doing with it besides just selling it over the counter. In exasperation, he let me start the sandwiches. That was in 1969.
We had been doing a poor boy type thing, but I wasn't satisfied with it. I told Junior, "I'm going to name a sandwich after us." He thought I was crazy. I finally came up with a sandwich that suited my tastes.

She christened her sandwich the Amighetti's Special – nearly a foot of Louis Amighetti's hearth-baked Italian bread filled with ham, roast beef, Genoa salami, brick cheese, peppers, pickles, onions, lettuce, tomatos and Marge's special sauce.

Amighetti's Special Sandwich


St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun 18, 1983	Amighetti's Special Sandwiches

The Amighetti's Special became a citywide phenomenon. St. Louis Post-Dispatch restaurant critic Joe Pollack wrote about the sandwich in his February 6, 1989 review.

The $4 Special is a delicious sandwich; the bread is fresh and crusty, the filling of beef, ham, salami, cheeses and a variety of other items brings a savory combination of flavors and textures. One can get a whole one, or a half, or three halves, or any combination, and one can eat there, take it back to the office or, on nice days, go down the street to Berra Park for an informal picnic.
One of the nice things about Amighetti's is that the diner can adapt the Special to taste. For example, I don't care for roast beef on a sandwich, so I get extra salami, or mortadella, or cheese, depending on my taste at the moment.
Marge Amighetti says a Special can be made in about two minutes, and she laughs as she tells of the Washington University students who used her for a time study and figured that it was under three minutes from order to table.

Amighetti's Special Sandwiches

Marge Amighetti didn't stop with the Special. She added roast beef and other sandwiches, the hot "Little Bit of Italy" sandwich, pizza and pizza pinwheels. She also added an express window and a stand-up counter. The carry-out business boomed. By the late 1970s, success had filled Marge's head with dreams of franchising.

In 1982 Anheuser-Busch bought a large national bakery, Campbell Taggart Inc. Marge had her lawyer send a letter about franchising to the Busch executive in charge of Campbell Taggart. He replied that Amighetti's was too small.

Meanwhile, Amighetti's undertook a major expansion. It bought the property north of the bakery and in February 1984 opened new dining areas, a full bar, a gelateria and a courtyard garden.

Amighetti's Wilson Avenue frontage

Amighetti's Marconi Avenue frontage

In February 1985 Marge told her lawyer to send another letter to The Brewery. Two days later the vice president for revenue of Busch Entertainment showed up. The company was considering restaurant concepts as a means of diversification. Other local candidates were Ruma's and Trotter's. By 1986, Busch Entertainment and the Amighettis had a deal.

The deal was a licensing agreement that gave Busch the right to open more restaurants using the name, the trademark, the likenesses of Marge and Louis, and the recipes in exchange for royalties. The deal did not include the Amighetti's Bakery on The Hill.

In the spring of 1987, Busch opened the first licensed Amighetti's at the site of the old Crest House restaurant at the corner of North Broadway and Chestnut, one block north of the ballpark. But the opening caused an uproar from nearby bar and restaurant owners. They were upset that the brewery, whose products they were selling, was competing against them for diners.

"We felt we were betrayed," said Alex Dooley, owner of Dooley's Ltd. "We didn't feel it was right for them to use the money we'd given them these years to open it."

After some establishments protested by offering non-A-B beers for the first time ever, restaurant and tavern owners met with Busch executives and settled the impasse. "They promised not to open any more in St. Louis," Dooley said.

Nearly a year after the opening of the downtown location, Busch decided to get out of the restaurant business. They put out a statement saying "that participation in the restaurant industry outside of our theme parks was not in keeping with Anheuser-Busch's diversification objectives."

Amighetti's "Little Bit of Italy" Sandwich

The Amighettis negotiated a new licensing agreement with Tinah Inc. Tinah purchased the downtown restaurant from Busch and opened five additional locations, including one in Clayton and one at 5696 Telegraph Road, joint ventured with Marge's grandson.

But Tinah's Amighetti operation encountered significant financial difficulties. Marge worried that the problems at the licensed locations reflected poorly on her and Louis and were responsible for a drop in business. By 1994, the Tinah locations had closed.

In February of 1995, Marge and Louis Amighetti retired and sold their restaurant on The Hill to John and Susie Stackle. By then, additional franchised restaurants had opened throughout the city. The Amighettis initially retained the franchise rights, but would eventually sell them to the Stackles, who would open an Amighetti's on Manchester in Rock Hill in 1998.

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Marge Amighetti called her husband "the master baker."

He's a workaholic. He is happiest when he's in that room and baking bread. It's his life and breath; it's what keeps him going. You can't take that paddle away from him.

On July 11, 2001, after a lifetime of baking, Louis D. "Junior" Amighetti Jr. died at the age of 79.

Louis and Marge Amighetti

By 2019, only two Amighetti's locations remained – the original location on The Hill and the Rock Hill location at 9631 Manchester. The Stackles had sold the Amighetti's on The Hill to Dominic Consolino in 2014. The Rock Hill location and the rights to the Amighetti's name and recipes had been sold to Anthony Favazza in 2017.

Favazza had overhauled the menu at the Rock Hill location. Alongside traditional sandwiches and pastas, he had introduced more contemporary dishes – a Tuscan kale salad, a meatball made with wild salmon and spinach. Favazza wanted to introduce these changes to Amighetti’s on The Hill, but he found Consolino resistant.

"I didn’t think that people came to The Hill for a kale salad," said Consolino.

Favazza sent Consolino an ultimatum to sell the restaurant or close it. Consolino sold Amighetti's on The Hill to his wife, who reopened it as Colino's Cafe & Bakery, changing a few names on the menu and a few ingredients.

In August of 2019, Favazza sued the Consolinos, alleging they had violated the noncompete clause in their franchise agreement. On January 1, 2020, Colino’s Cafe & Bakery announced they were closing their doors.

Colino's Cafe and Bakery, 5141 Wilson, August 2019

On July 14, 2001, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page published a eulogy for Louis Amighetti Jr. which included the following:

Given the proper ingredients, you might be able to make most of an Amighetti's Special. Slices of ham, roast beef, Genoa salami and brick cheese. Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and sweet banana peppers. The dressing might be tricky, but the bread? The long loaves of hard-crusted, melt-in-your mouth Italian bread? You couldn't fake that. Nobody made bread like Junior Amighetti.

As of June 2020, there was indeed an Amighetti's remaining at 9631 Manchester Road in Rock Hill that served the Amighetti's Special sandwich, in addition to a Tuscan kale salad and a meatball made with wild salmon and spinach. But Junior Amighetti's melt-in-your mouth Italian bread had indeed been lost, as was his near 100-year old bakery at 5141 Wilson on The Hill.

Amighetti's Bakery, 5141 Wilson