{"id":879,"date":"2007-06-01T15:59:18","date_gmt":"2007-06-01T21:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/06\/01\/nick-mancini\/"},"modified":"2007-06-01T15:08:31","modified_gmt":"2007-06-01T21:08:31","slug":"nick-mancini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=879","title":{"rendered":"Nick Mancini"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot has been written about Nick Mancini, who passed away Tuesday<\/a> at 80 of complications of Alzheimers.<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

(Photo from the Strib)<\/font><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mancini had been for sixty years one of old Saint Paul’s foremost restauranteurs; everybody <\/em>knew him, from politicians to kids in the neighborhood.\u00a0\u00a0 Mancini’s was a great place to take a date – especially if she was from some godforsaken suburb and needed to be shown how really really fun <\/em>a night out in Saint Paul could be.\u00a0 So everybody <\/em>has been eulogizing Mancini.<\/p>\n

I’ll add my two cents.<\/p>\n

I interviewed Mancini, and his son Johnny, back in 1987.\u00a0 I was doing a story for a local paper about the big new “Vegas” addition to Mancini’s Char House, by then a 40-year institution on the West End (the part of Saint Paul west of downtown below the bluffs).\u00a0 The grand opening the following week would feature Tony Bennett; a who’s who of the old Levee neigbhorhood – Saint Paul’s traditional Little Italy – was going to be there, too – Mama D, Lou Cotroneo, Vic Tedesco, and a zillion other names ending in “o” and “i” unknown to me but fixtures in the old neighborhood.<\/p>\n

And if you hung around the place at all, you figured out a lot about the character of neighborhoods like the West End, which, even for a Saint Paul neighborhood (a city called “fifteen small towns with one mayor”) seems like a throwback; a tattered, rough-looking but comfortable and fairly safe neighborhood that, recent up-market moves closer to downtown aside, feels like it’s hardly changed since the end of World War II.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Longtime West Ender Erik Hare – who mooched off of Mancini even more than I did – also wrote about Nick<\/a>:<\/p>\n

My first memory of Nick came when I was working on a political campaign across the street. Nick loved to dabble in politics, and while he took care of everyone he was sure to take care of the public servants he knew served Saint Paul well. I was there one evening when he carted over a great big tray of food.<\/p>\n

“Eat it! No, it’s no problem. If you don’t eat it, I’ll just throw it out. You might as well enjoy it!”<\/p>\n

He always downplayed his charity, making it almost a sin if you didn’t take it. So we all tucked in with the plates and napkins he thoughtfully brought along. It was great after a hard night of calling people and related politicking. But I had to ask a colleague one question:<\/p>\n

“These are great stuffed shells, but I didn’t know they were on the menu at Mancini’s.”
\n“Just eat” was the reply. And we did. Boy, did we eat that night.<\/p>\n

Nick often gave away food that way, after church or just when he felt like it. A lot of people came to wonder how he made money that way.<\/p>\n

He made enough. Enough is as good as a feast. Everything about Mancini’s is a feast…That was the great gift that Nick gave to us all. He created an institution at the heart of the West End that we know will be a part of us all even after he is gone. A spirit like his is more than the steaks and the good times. Mancini’s belongs to all of us, throughout the community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyway – it’s a legacy one hopes his kids carry on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

UPDATE:\u00a0 And Nick Coleman, working on his ostensible home turf, delivers the kind of column he does best<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I tell people that if you want to “get” St. Paul, Mancini’s is a good place to start. Each photo on the walls is part of the intricately woven story of the people and the place, including shrines to the vanished Monroe and Mechanics Arts High Schools and the legends of the St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame…In my favorite photo [of the hundreds lining Mancinis’ walls], taken on Columbus Day 1931, most of the Italians of St. Paul stand on the steps of the cathedral for the dedication of a monument to Christopher Columbus. Proudly standing in front, with his parents and his sister, is 4-year-old Nick Mancini.<\/p>\n

It is a time and a place that are gone. But which left a city and a steakhouse still open for business. Nick Mancini started when he could buy only potatoes six at a time. He ended up helping the poor, feeding the hungry and leaving us a place where the powerful come to be seen — and to be seated — among the common people.<\/p>\n

And where Nick was king.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exactly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot has been written about Nick Mancini, who passed away Tuesday at 80 of complications of Alzheimers. (Photo from the Strib)\u00a0 \u00a0Mancini had been for sixty years one of old Saint Paul’s foremost restauranteurs; everybody knew him, from politicians to kids in the neighborhood.\u00a0\u00a0 Mancini’s was a great place to take a date – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoriam","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}