TVs Food Network might be responsible for planting words such as gnocchi and panettone into the American consciousness, but Cassanos Import Italian Foods brought those items to Spokane long before celebrity chefs such as Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse invaded peoples kitchens.


Cassanos, which opened at 312 E. Sprague in 1922, sells meats, cheeses, sauces and other foodstuff imported from Italy. Cassanos moved one door down, to 314 E. Sprague, in 1991, but other than that not much has changed during the markets long history, say its current and former owners.


Co-owner Carl Naccarato proudly describes the market as an understated place where Italians, Italian-Americans, and those who simply love Italian food can find authentic goods and catch up with some lively paisanos.


The people who walk in here expect more than a package of spaghetti and a bottle of wine, Naccarato says. Theyre intrigued by Italians, in a way. If youve got the time, you can make it a neat experience for people.


Naccarato and Bud Saccomanno bought the business from Elvira Rossi in 1999. Naccarato worked previously as the general manager of the WestCoast Ridpath Hotel and as catering manager of the DoubleTree Hotel Spokane City Center. Saccomanno was a beer and wine wholesaler here for years and owned Fly Away Travel, which now is closed.


Rossis husband, the late Louis Rossi, had owned Cassanos since the late 1940s, when Mike Cassano, the businesss founder and Louis Rossis stepfather, passed it on to him. With the help of her sister-in-law, Joyce Rossi, Elvira Rossi ran the business after her husbands death in 1995. It was hard work, though, and Rossi was ready to sell four years later.


A lot of people wanted to buy it before them, Rossi says, referring to Naccarato and Saccomanno, but I didnt want it to change.


It hardly has.


Rossi, who still works at Cassanos, sold the market to the current owners because they vowed to operate the business as she and her husband had, she says. She didnt want someone unfamiliar with Italian heritage to bulldoze the place and turn it into an expensive, yuppie-geared gourmet shop. Although theyve added some new products, Naccarato and Saccomanno, who also own an underage dance club in Spokane called Club, Say What, remember shopping at Cassanos as kids and have no desire to revamp the business, Naccarato says.


Its important to us to maintain our heritage through this store, he says. Its a trip back in time, a welcome departure from the corporate mundane.


Customers like the stores consistency and authenticity, he says. They also appreciate the Lavazza coffee, fresh Tuscan-style bread, melt-in-your-mouth prosciutto ham, and other Italian products Cassanos carries, Naccarato says.Naccarato walks past barrels of fresh olives and pauses at the coolers to pull out a tub of Giglio butter.


Once you try this , he says, his voice trailing off with the Mama mia! implied.


Rossi, whos small in stature, but as colorful as a jar of tomato sauce, still grinds the 40-pound wheels of Parmesan and pecorino cheeses using a 100-year-old wooden wheel shredder. She slices softer cheeses with a wire attached to a board built decades ago. Every two weeks, she grinds by hand about 200 pounds of meat and stuffs it into sausage links.


A hanging rug depicting the Last Supper adorns the shops office. Pictures of the Virgin Mary, President Kennedy, and Elvis Presley hang on the stores walls, some 40 years ago. Large Nativity-scene figures, which are 100 years old, have been displayed even longer, Naccarato says. The owners order their products from the same wholesalers in San Francisco, New York, and Italy that theyve dealt with for decades.


The salami comes with a side order of sass at Cassanos. Rossi and Naccarato joke with one another and with their customers, sometimes in English, but often in Italian. Ask Rossi how many people work at the store, and she answers: Nobody here works! She exclaims Bella! Bella! to the female customers when they come in and invites people into the kitchen to eat a sandwich.


Rossi met her late husband in Italy during the 1950s. Louis Rossi, who was born in the U.S., courted her during his visits to the Calabria region of Italy, where she lived. The couple married there and six months later, Elvira Rossi joined her husband in Spokane.


June 28, 1961, she says. I remember that day because I cried so bad. I came here with no friends, nobody talking Italian to me.


That didnt last long, though. Many of Cassanos customers spoke only Italian then, Rossi says.


When Cassanos first opened in the 1920s, it was surrounded by groceries and taverns owned by immigrants, including Italians, Scandinavians, Russians, French, Irish, German, Polish, Austrian, and black Americans, says Nancy Compau, a historian with Spokane Public Library. Many of the immigrants came to Spokane to work on the railroads.


Toni Savalli, a retired librarian here, remembers shopping at Cassanos as a little girl in the 1930s.


It was a little hole in the wall, Savalli says. I remember Mike Cassano, the original owner, always had Hershey bars for the kids, so it was always fun to go there.


Savalli, whos 75 now, says she still shops there about once a month for provolone cheese, bread, and sausage.


While the look of the market and its products hardly has changed in eight decades, the clientele has evolved over time, Rossi says. The number of Italian-speaking customers has waned, and customers now live further from Cassanos than they once did, she says. In fact, the shops surrounding neighborhood deteriorated over the years from a thriving hub of ethnically flavored activity to a haven for prostitutes and transients during the 1980s and 1990s. The East Sprague area has improved since then, but regardless, Rossi has accepted her most recent neighbors as readily as she accepted the ones she first met here as a newlywed.


The hookers used to call to me, Mama! Mama! I would give them a little something, she says, pinching her fingers together near her mouth, as if she were biting off a piece of salami. Then I would say, Why dont you quit that work?


On a recent Thursday, while a reporter visited the store, she started to feed a homeless man a sandwich, but because he had a toothache, she changed his order to soup.


A recent national trend toward authentic, ethnic cooking and an interest in Italian heritage has lured new customers into Cassanos, Naccarato says. They come in looking for ingredients they see Emeril Lagasse use on TV, and they often ask Cassanos employees if they watch the Sopranos, he says.


Sometimes, customers ask Rossi to translate letters from their Italian relatives or give Italian-language lessons.


Naccarato declines to disclose the shops revenues, but says business has been consistently good over the years and has picked up during the last two. For decades, only Elvira and Louis Rossi manned the shop. Now, Rossi says, its difficult to say how many people work there because friends and family come and go, working two hours or more at a time. During peak hours, however, at least four people usually are behind the counter.


The recent addition of some products has attracted new customers, and Cassanos plans to add even more items to its diverse inventory, Saccomanno says. Fresh pasta, fragrant olive oil, mascarpone cheese, and other goods, however, comprise only a portion of Cassanos equation for success and longevity, Naccarato says.