Anthony Ghio, the last of the four co-founders of the landmark San Diego restaurant Anthony’s Fish Grotto, died Monday at his home in La Jolla at the age of 97.
“He had an incredible sense of business integrity,” said Ghio’s nephew, Craig Ghio, who worked alongside his uncle for 40 years. “During his tenure as CEO, there wasn’t ever one account that ever got stiffed. There weren’t late payments, there weren’t defaults … It was just that whole, ‘If you owe it, you pay it’ philosophy. It’s how he ran things.”
Fresh out of the U.S. Navy after World War II, Ghio in 1946 joined other members of his family to assist his mother in opening the first restaurant in San Diego that served seafood only.
The original site was tiny — just 30 feet by 30 feet, with 17 stools and two tables seating four people each — but proved to be an instant hit. Locals lined up to get a taste of the menu items prepared by Catherine “Mama” Ghio, a determined woman who zealously guarded the family’s secret light-batter recipe that gave the seafood at Anthony’s a distinctive flavor.
The restaurant was named for Mama Ghio’s grandfather in Italy and for St. Anthony, the patron saint of fishermen.
Mama Ghio and son Tod ruled the kitchen and when he wasn’t waiting on customers, Anthony manned the cash register. Within a month of the restaurant’s debut, Roy Weber, the husband of Anthony’s sister, Adel, joined the business.
The crowds grew so large that people sat in their cars and took numbers to wait for a spot to open. Ever the entrepreneurs, the Ghio family would serve guests martinis while they waited in their sedans.
“We didn’t know then that so many people like fish,” Anthony told the Union-Tribune on the restaurant’s 40th anniversary.
Within five years, the original restaurant moved to a larger space that was built on pilings on San Diego Bay at 1360 N. Harbor Drive.
Eventually, Anthony’s grew to become San Diego’s largest family-owned food service operation, with four retail markets and seven restaurants that employed 510 people and racked up $22 million in annual sales in 1994.
Overlooking a spring-fed lake, Anthony’s Fish Grotto in La Mesa remains open but in January 2017, the mainstay on N. Harbor Drive closed its doors to comply with San Diego Unified Port District lease requirements and was replaced by Portside Pier, a group of restaurants by the Brigantine chain.
“I think (Anthony Ghio) was sad” when the landmark restaurant closed,” said Patti Ghio, who was married to Anthony’s son, Rick. “But he had a realistic view about it. He would say, ‘Well, we had a good run.’ He understood time moves forward.”
A native San Diegan and proud graduate of San Diego State (Class of 1943, with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a minor in history), Anthony Ghio became a driving force in the city’s business community.
He served as president of the California Restaurant Association in 1969 and founded the San Diego Restaurant Association in 1981, the same year Ghio was elected president of the San Diego Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
Ghio was instrumental in getting the San Diego Convention Center issue on the ballot and working with friend and fellow businessman Ray Lubach, Ghio helped entice Holland America to become the first cruise ship line to come to San Diego.
“It all required tons of work and tons of hours,” Patti Ghio said, “but from that generation of Italians, that’s what you do — you work.”
Anthony Ghio outlived his wife, Josephine, who died from complications from a brain tumor in 1999, and his three sons, Rick, Michael and Anthony Paul (“Nino”).
“He had a lot of personal tragedy in his life but he was a man of faith,” said Craig Ghio, who is the CEO of the La Mesa Grotto. “There are people who turn their back on religion and their faith in the face of adversity and personal tragedy, but here’s a guy who never did.”
A meticulous man, Anthony Ghio left notes for his family preceding his death that cited his business and personal milestones.
A seven-page missive concludes with Ghio relating a story from his time in the Navy. Stationed at the time in Bremerton, Washington, a homesick Ghio wangled a leave of absence from his commanding officer to fly home to San Diego for Thanksgiving. But a severe snowstorm descended the night before the flight.
“That evening, I knelt down and prayed like I had never prayed before, with conviction and devotion,” Ghio wrote.
The next morning, the skies broke clear and Ghio made his flight and arrived home to Little Italy just before Thanksgiving dinner.
Craig Ghio said it’s appropriate his uncle passed away on Thanksgiving week.
“The last couple years have been difficult for him,” Craig Ghio. “He was ready to go home to his family and be with God.”
Among his extended family, Anthony Ghio is survived by daughter-in-law Patti; granddaughters Angie Allen, Jenna Shaun Murphy and Katie Ghio, and four great-grandchildren.
A funeral mass will be held Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. at All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla.
Source: By ROB NIKOLEWSKI - NOV. 20, 20185:40 PM San Diego Union-Tribune News
U-T news researcher Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/obituaries/sd-fi-anthony-ghio-bio-20181120-story.html
“He had an incredible sense of business integrity,” said Ghio’s nephew, Craig Ghio, who worked alongside his uncle for 40 years. “During his tenure as CEO, there wasn’t ever one account that ever got stiffed. There weren’t late payments, there weren’t defaults … It was just that whole, ‘If you owe it, you pay it’ philosophy. It’s how he ran things.”
Fresh out of the U.S. Navy after World War II, Ghio in 1946 joined other members of his family to assist his mother in opening the first restaurant in San Diego that served seafood only.
The original site was tiny — just 30 feet by 30 feet, with 17 stools and two tables seating four people each — but proved to be an instant hit. Locals lined up to get a taste of the menu items prepared by Catherine “Mama” Ghio, a determined woman who zealously guarded the family’s secret light-batter recipe that gave the seafood at Anthony’s a distinctive flavor.
The restaurant was named for Mama Ghio’s grandfather in Italy and for St. Anthony, the patron saint of fishermen.
Mama Ghio and son Tod ruled the kitchen and when he wasn’t waiting on customers, Anthony manned the cash register. Within a month of the restaurant’s debut, Roy Weber, the husband of Anthony’s sister, Adel, joined the business.
The crowds grew so large that people sat in their cars and took numbers to wait for a spot to open. Ever the entrepreneurs, the Ghio family would serve guests martinis while they waited in their sedans.
“We didn’t know then that so many people like fish,” Anthony told the Union-Tribune on the restaurant’s 40th anniversary.
Within five years, the original restaurant moved to a larger space that was built on pilings on San Diego Bay at 1360 N. Harbor Drive.
Eventually, Anthony’s grew to become San Diego’s largest family-owned food service operation, with four retail markets and seven restaurants that employed 510 people and racked up $22 million in annual sales in 1994.
Overlooking a spring-fed lake, Anthony’s Fish Grotto in La Mesa remains open but in January 2017, the mainstay on N. Harbor Drive closed its doors to comply with San Diego Unified Port District lease requirements and was replaced by Portside Pier, a group of restaurants by the Brigantine chain.
“I think (Anthony Ghio) was sad” when the landmark restaurant closed,” said Patti Ghio, who was married to Anthony’s son, Rick. “But he had a realistic view about it. He would say, ‘Well, we had a good run.’ He understood time moves forward.”
A native San Diegan and proud graduate of San Diego State (Class of 1943, with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a minor in history), Anthony Ghio became a driving force in the city’s business community.
He served as president of the California Restaurant Association in 1969 and founded the San Diego Restaurant Association in 1981, the same year Ghio was elected president of the San Diego Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
Ghio was instrumental in getting the San Diego Convention Center issue on the ballot and working with friend and fellow businessman Ray Lubach, Ghio helped entice Holland America to become the first cruise ship line to come to San Diego.
“It all required tons of work and tons of hours,” Patti Ghio said, “but from that generation of Italians, that’s what you do — you work.”
Anthony Ghio outlived his wife, Josephine, who died from complications from a brain tumor in 1999, and his three sons, Rick, Michael and Anthony Paul (“Nino”).
“He had a lot of personal tragedy in his life but he was a man of faith,” said Craig Ghio, who is the CEO of the La Mesa Grotto. “There are people who turn their back on religion and their faith in the face of adversity and personal tragedy, but here’s a guy who never did.”
A meticulous man, Anthony Ghio left notes for his family preceding his death that cited his business and personal milestones.
A seven-page missive concludes with Ghio relating a story from his time in the Navy. Stationed at the time in Bremerton, Washington, a homesick Ghio wangled a leave of absence from his commanding officer to fly home to San Diego for Thanksgiving. But a severe snowstorm descended the night before the flight.
“That evening, I knelt down and prayed like I had never prayed before, with conviction and devotion,” Ghio wrote.
The next morning, the skies broke clear and Ghio made his flight and arrived home to Little Italy just before Thanksgiving dinner.
Craig Ghio said it’s appropriate his uncle passed away on Thanksgiving week.
“The last couple years have been difficult for him,” Craig Ghio. “He was ready to go home to his family and be with God.”
Among his extended family, Anthony Ghio is survived by daughter-in-law Patti; granddaughters Angie Allen, Jenna Shaun Murphy and Katie Ghio, and four great-grandchildren.
A funeral mass will be held Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. at All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla.
Source: By ROB NIKOLEWSKI - NOV. 20, 20185:40 PM San Diego Union-Tribune News
U-T news researcher Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/obituaries/sd-fi-anthony-ghio-bio-20181120-story.html
Anthony Ghio, the last of the four co-founders of the landmark San Diego restaurant Anthony’s Fish Grotto, died Monday at his home in La Jolla at the age of 97.
“He had an incredible sense of business integrity,” said Ghio’s nephew, Craig Ghio, who worked alongside his uncle for 40 years. “During his tenure as CEO, there wasn’t ever one account that ever got stiffed. There weren’t late payments, there weren’t defaults … It was just that whole, ‘If you owe it, you pay it’ philosophy. It’s how he ran things.”
Fresh out of the U.S. Navy after World War II, Ghio in 1946 joined other members of his family to assist his mother in opening the first restaurant in San Diego that served seafood only.
The original site was tiny — just 30 feet by 30 feet, with 17 stools and two tables seating four people each — but proved to be an instant hit. Locals lined up to get a taste of the menu items prepared by Catherine “Mama” Ghio, a determined woman who zealously guarded the family’s secret light-batter recipe that gave the seafood at Anthony’s a distinctive flavor.
The restaurant was named for Mama Ghio’s grandfather in Italy and for St. Anthony, the patron saint of fishermen.
Mama Ghio and son Tod ruled the kitchen and when he wasn’t waiting on customers, Anthony manned the cash register. Within a month of the restaurant’s debut, Roy Weber, the husband of Anthony’s sister, Adel, joined the business.
The crowds grew so large that people sat in their cars and took numbers to wait for a spot to open. Ever the entrepreneurs, the Ghio family would serve guests martinis while they waited in their sedans.
“We didn’t know then that so many people like fish,” Anthony told the Union-Tribune on the restaurant’s 40th anniversary.
Within five years, the original restaurant moved to a larger space that was built on pilings on San Diego Bay at 1360 N. Harbor Drive.
Eventually, Anthony’s grew to become San Diego’s largest family-owned food service operation, with four retail markets and seven restaurants that employed 510 people and racked up $22 million in annual sales in 1994.
Overlooking a spring-fed lake, Anthony’s Fish Grotto in La Mesa remains open but in January 2017, the mainstay on N. Harbor Drive closed its doors to comply with San Diego Unified Port District lease requirements and was replaced by Portside Pier, a group of restaurants by the Brigantine chain.
“I think (Anthony Ghio) was sad” when the landmark restaurant closed,” said Patti Ghio, who was married to Anthony’s son, Rick. “But he had a realistic view about it. He would say, ‘Well, we had a good run.’ He understood time moves forward.”
A native San Diegan and proud graduate of San Diego State (Class of 1943, with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a minor in history), Anthony Ghio became a driving force in the city’s business community.
He served as president of the California Restaurant Association in 1969 and founded the San Diego Restaurant Association in 1981, the same year Ghio was elected president of the San Diego Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
Ghio was instrumental in getting the San Diego Convention Center issue on the ballot and working with friend and fellow businessman Ray Lubach, Ghio helped entice Holland America to become the first cruise ship line to come to San Diego.
“It all required tons of work and tons of hours,” Patti Ghio said, “but from that generation of Italians, that’s what you do — you work.”
Anthony Ghio outlived his wife, Josephine, who died from complications from a brain tumor in 1999, and his three sons, Rick, Michael and Anthony Paul (“Nino”).
“He had a lot of personal tragedy in his life but he was a man of faith,” said Craig Ghio, who is the CEO of the La Mesa Grotto. “There are people who turn their back on religion and their faith in the face of adversity and personal tragedy, but here’s a guy who never did.”
A meticulous man, Anthony Ghio left notes for his family preceding his death that cited his business and personal milestones.
A seven-page missive concludes with Ghio relating a story from his time in the Navy. Stationed at the time in Bremerton, Washington, a homesick Ghio wangled a leave of absence from his commanding officer to fly home to San Diego for Thanksgiving. But a severe snowstorm descended the night before the flight.
“That evening, I knelt down and prayed like I had never prayed before, with conviction and devotion,” Ghio wrote.
The next morning, the skies broke clear and Ghio made his flight and arrived home to Little Italy just before Thanksgiving dinner.
Craig Ghio said it’s appropriate his uncle passed away on Thanksgiving week.
“The last couple years have been difficult for him,” Craig Ghio. “He was ready to go home to his family and be with God.”
Among his extended family, Anthony Ghio is survived by daughter-in-law Patti; granddaughters Angie Allen, Jenna Shaun Murphy and Katie Ghio, and four great-grandchildren.
A funeral mass will be held Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. at All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla.
Source: By ROB NIKOLEWSKI - NOV. 20, 20185:40 PM San Diego Union-Tribune News
U-T news researcher Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/obituaries/sd-fi-anthony-ghio-bio-20181120-story.html
“He had an incredible sense of business integrity,” said Ghio’s nephew, Craig Ghio, who worked alongside his uncle for 40 years. “During his tenure as CEO, there wasn’t ever one account that ever got stiffed. There weren’t late payments, there weren’t defaults … It was just that whole, ‘If you owe it, you pay it’ philosophy. It’s how he ran things.”
Fresh out of the U.S. Navy after World War II, Ghio in 1946 joined other members of his family to assist his mother in opening the first restaurant in San Diego that served seafood only.
The original site was tiny — just 30 feet by 30 feet, with 17 stools and two tables seating four people each — but proved to be an instant hit. Locals lined up to get a taste of the menu items prepared by Catherine “Mama” Ghio, a determined woman who zealously guarded the family’s secret light-batter recipe that gave the seafood at Anthony’s a distinctive flavor.
The restaurant was named for Mama Ghio’s grandfather in Italy and for St. Anthony, the patron saint of fishermen.
Mama Ghio and son Tod ruled the kitchen and when he wasn’t waiting on customers, Anthony manned the cash register. Within a month of the restaurant’s debut, Roy Weber, the husband of Anthony’s sister, Adel, joined the business.
The crowds grew so large that people sat in their cars and took numbers to wait for a spot to open. Ever the entrepreneurs, the Ghio family would serve guests martinis while they waited in their sedans.
“We didn’t know then that so many people like fish,” Anthony told the Union-Tribune on the restaurant’s 40th anniversary.
Within five years, the original restaurant moved to a larger space that was built on pilings on San Diego Bay at 1360 N. Harbor Drive.
Eventually, Anthony’s grew to become San Diego’s largest family-owned food service operation, with four retail markets and seven restaurants that employed 510 people and racked up $22 million in annual sales in 1994.
Overlooking a spring-fed lake, Anthony’s Fish Grotto in La Mesa remains open but in January 2017, the mainstay on N. Harbor Drive closed its doors to comply with San Diego Unified Port District lease requirements and was replaced by Portside Pier, a group of restaurants by the Brigantine chain.
“I think (Anthony Ghio) was sad” when the landmark restaurant closed,” said Patti Ghio, who was married to Anthony’s son, Rick. “But he had a realistic view about it. He would say, ‘Well, we had a good run.’ He understood time moves forward.”
A native San Diegan and proud graduate of San Diego State (Class of 1943, with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a minor in history), Anthony Ghio became a driving force in the city’s business community.
He served as president of the California Restaurant Association in 1969 and founded the San Diego Restaurant Association in 1981, the same year Ghio was elected president of the San Diego Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
Ghio was instrumental in getting the San Diego Convention Center issue on the ballot and working with friend and fellow businessman Ray Lubach, Ghio helped entice Holland America to become the first cruise ship line to come to San Diego.
“It all required tons of work and tons of hours,” Patti Ghio said, “but from that generation of Italians, that’s what you do — you work.”
Anthony Ghio outlived his wife, Josephine, who died from complications from a brain tumor in 1999, and his three sons, Rick, Michael and Anthony Paul (“Nino”).
“He had a lot of personal tragedy in his life but he was a man of faith,” said Craig Ghio, who is the CEO of the La Mesa Grotto. “There are people who turn their back on religion and their faith in the face of adversity and personal tragedy, but here’s a guy who never did.”
A meticulous man, Anthony Ghio left notes for his family preceding his death that cited his business and personal milestones.
A seven-page missive concludes with Ghio relating a story from his time in the Navy. Stationed at the time in Bremerton, Washington, a homesick Ghio wangled a leave of absence from his commanding officer to fly home to San Diego for Thanksgiving. But a severe snowstorm descended the night before the flight.
“That evening, I knelt down and prayed like I had never prayed before, with conviction and devotion,” Ghio wrote.
The next morning, the skies broke clear and Ghio made his flight and arrived home to Little Italy just before Thanksgiving dinner.
Craig Ghio said it’s appropriate his uncle passed away on Thanksgiving week.
“The last couple years have been difficult for him,” Craig Ghio. “He was ready to go home to his family and be with God.”
Among his extended family, Anthony Ghio is survived by daughter-in-law Patti; granddaughters Angie Allen, Jenna Shaun Murphy and Katie Ghio, and four great-grandchildren.
A funeral mass will be held Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. at All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla.
Source: By ROB NIKOLEWSKI - NOV. 20, 20185:40 PM San Diego Union-Tribune News
U-T news researcher Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/obituaries/sd-fi-anthony-ghio-bio-20181120-story.html
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