Did you actually get to the bank?”
“Nope. Just to the flower stand.”
Jimmy Sunseri never tires of this exchange whose punchline is a foregone conclusion.
“The big joke here is I’ll say I’m going to the bank and be back in 15 minutes. [The cashier] will say, ‘See you in an hour’,” said Jimmy, with his signature unlit cigar stuffed into one cheek.
He and his brother, Nino, are co-owners of the eponymous Jimmy & Nino Sunseri Co. and descendants of Pennsylvania Macaroni Co. fame. The Sunseri family’s presence in the Strip District is approaching the 120-year mark. It’s a milestone that has been accompanied by a certain amount of notoriety, the kind that turns a simple errand into a social event for the 68-year-old Jimmy and makes him a solid contender to be depicted on a Pittsburgh Mount Rushmore.
Taught an otherworldly work ethic by his late father, Anthony, Jimmy Sunseri has too much pride in the family business to simply call it a career. Unable to walk without the use of a cane because of his Parkinson’s disease and the lasting effects of a leg injury, and prohibited from working, he relies on a lifetime of relationships that he has built and an institutional knowledge to do his part at the shop.
“With my Parkinson’s, [running into people I know is] the best therapy in the world because my mind is enhanced; I’m talking to people. That’s really the only reason I’m down here anymore, the social part,” he said, palming his wooden cane, hand carved with the image of a wizard-like older man.
The center of the store is anchored by a red director’s chair embroidered with his name in gold thread. It’s where you’ll often find him from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Nino Sunseri’s son and heir apparent, Ross Sunseri, a former banker, is now the general manager and has taken over his uncle’s duties of working behind the sandwich counter and in the kitchen.
“In our 50 years here, I like to describe ourselves as being chameleons: We’ve had to change colors and change what we do,” said the 67-year-old Nino.
Scrambled eggs and pepperoni
The Sunseri family has been supplying Pittsburghers with genuine Italian foods since 1898 when they first emigrated from Sicily. A fire destroyed the Sunseris’ original pasta store in Sharpsburg in 1902 and led to the birth of Pennsylvania Macaroni Co., aka Penn Mac, in the Strip.
After the death of his father, Anthony Sunseri, only 16, stopped his formal education and began working full time at the store, forging the tremendous work ethic for which he would become known.
“What people didn’t realize was that growing up as a child, I’d go to bed at night and my father wasn’t home yet because he was working. When I got up in the morning, he was already gone to go to work,” Jimmy recalls.
Sunday was the day to be with Dad. He’d make breakfast — scrambled eggs and pepperoni some days — for his wife and five children.
“When my dad was home, he was my father, all the nurturing and mentoring. When he was at work, I was just another employee,” said Jimmy who began to work at Penn Mac at age 13.
Wholesalers dominated the Strip in the 1960s and Penn Mac was no exception, selling most of its products by the case. Jimmy would load them into the customers’ cars and learned to craft the customer experience from “the world’s most driven man,” as he still refers to his father.
“If you can lean, you can clean,” Anthony would say if he caught Jimmy or any other employee, resting on the job.
“Are you ready to work today?” replaced “good morning.”
And, Anthony’s mantra, “Work never killed anyone,” still rings in Jimmy’s ears.
“Dad didn’t have a dead 10 seconds in his life; he was always thinking,” Jimmy said.
Sausage sandwich
Anthony’s relationship with Penn Mac ended in 1985 over differences in management styles. Within six months, Jimmy and Nino decided to open their own store where Anthony's brainstorms found a home, even in his “retirement.”
When you walk into Jimmy & Nino’s, there’s a set of waist-high, weighted poles with rubber-coated chains between them immediately to the left and a sign on one end that reads, “Line starts here.” It’s the sandwich line, and a product of Anthony’s mental inertia.
“Dad cooked us sausage one time [for lunch], and people kept coming in, smelling the sausage, saying, ‘Can I have a sausage sandwich?’” Jimmy said.
Anthony invented a price on the fly and began slinging sausage sandwiches for all who asked.
Anthony also came up with the addictive Legendary Dipping Peppers, which combines Cubanelle, banana and jalapeno peppers, onion, tomato, chunks of prosciutto and two types of oil (available in pint-sized containers for purchase) and as the “atomic” part of the Atomic Pepperoni Rolls.
“He didn’t finish school, but he wasn’t afraid of the work,” Jimmy said.
Anthony’s insistence on higher education is the rudder that has directed two generations of Sunseris, and counting.
Jimmy and Nino graduated from Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh, respectively, dodging the influences of U.S. Marine uncles and steel worker friends. Together, they’re the fathers of nine children, all college graduates.
Roasting lamb at 5 a.m.
Jimmy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 10 months ago. Two years earlier, Jimmy took a fall that required extensive surgery with complications to follow.
“[Baking] was a big deal to me. Now, I can’t even lift a bread tray because of my balance. Those were the good old days, [when I was cooking],” Jimmy said.
Like his father, Jimmy has not really retired. The wheels are always turning, and his role as the store’s resident greeter is just as valuable to the business as his cooking was.
“Technically, this is what I do all day long: I see people, interact with them. It’s more of a blessing for me than it is for them. It gets my mind off of whatever is going on,” Jimmy said.
“There isn’t a minute when he’s not here that people don’t want to know where he is. If there’s a more recognizable face in the Strip, or maybe in the city, I’d want to know who it is,” Nino added.
Parkinson’s disease has also made Jimmy an insomniac — a cooking insomniac.
To his Facebook followers and wife of two-and-a-half-years, Lois, Jimmy is now famous for beautifully plated charcuterie, described in agonizing detail and posted in the wee hours of the night.
“Now, his big thing is fruit, and it’s so beautiful. Who wouldn’t want to eat it? It’s an art,” said Lois, whose friendship with Jimmy preceded marriage by 30 years.
“It’s just very, very therapeutic for me anytime I post something,” said Jimmy, who also is known to roast a leg of lamb at 5 a.m.
He misses the ritual of cooking at the store, but his evolved role as a greeter is what has cemented his legacy.
“People can take whatever they want away from you, but they can never ever take away your memories or your education. As long as someone remembers you, you exist.”
Abby Mackey: abbyrose.mackey@gmail.com and Twitter @AnthroAbbyRN.
First Published: February 12, 2020, 12:30 p.m.