Richie DiSalvo - Anthony the Hat

 

 

One of the regulars in this pizzeria that I used to manage was Anthony the Hat. [audience laughter] Every time Anthony would come in for lunch, he would tell me, “Richie, you run a great operation here. The place is always clean, food's great, take care of the people, nice.” He'd say, “Someday you have to get your own place. You need to have your own pizzeria one day.” In the back of my mind, I'd be agreeing with him, because that was my dream, to one day open my own pizzeria. 

 

I had been in the business for 15 years. Every boss that I worked for was the same old crap, [audience laughter] “Richie, you're a good worker. We'll give you a piece to the action, we'll take care of you.” But after a while, many years, it was just like they were stringing me along and I was getting fed up with the whole thing. So, one particular afternoon, Anthony comes in for his usual lunch, two slices with anchovies, five garlic knots, a calzone and a Diet Coke. [audience laughter] I can never understand that. And he says, “Richie, I got this proposition for you. I want you to come and work for me. I'll take you under my wing and I'll let you make some real money.” 

 

It happened to be a bad day at the shop that night. So, let me take a shot with Anthony. So, he tells me, “I'm setting up this operation downtown. I'm going to have my friends in the back taking some illegal bets on sports, a few numbers in the back. [audience laughter] And your job would be to stay up front, run the operation up front. All you need to do, Richie, is you look out for the police, take care of the buzzer, let in the clients, press the code if you see the police. And in the morning, when my workers come in, make sure everybody has that little metal, plastic, waste paper basket filled with lighter fluid, and make sure everybody has matches.” [audience laughter] That was my job. [audience laughter] Piece of cake. [audience applause] 

 

I said, “No problem, Anthony.” For three times the amount that I was making, it sounded pretty good. So, I started working for Anthony. It was great. Not only working at the job. It was just like every night after work we'd all go down to Eddie Leblanc social club down on Sullivan Street. Start off with a little cappuccino. We'd go to Nick & Eddie's on Sullivan Street. We'd go to La Dolce Vita. Every time we walked in the restaurant, the seas would part. The waiters would trip over themselves to take care of us, because Anthony the Hat was there, Eddie LeBlanc was there, Frankie California was there. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

From working behind an oven all these years, this was a nice thing. People would stop at the table, give their respect to Anthony, buy us a bottle of wine and just move on. And it was nice. I started feeling like King Kong after a while. [audience laughter] The money was great. I'm spending it as fast as I'm making it, and I things look good now. This is going on for about seven months. 

 

As fate would have it and it usually does, [audience laughter] I look out of the corner of my eye one afternoon and I see cops coming with hammers. They're pretty close, so I was just able to get the code in and warn the guys. And so, I knew they would get this work in the waste paper basket, no evidence and everything would be cool. [audience laughter] 

 

So, now they must have known the operation. They must have had somebody come in the back, because they just bolted past me and they broke down the door and they wanted the guys in the back to try to get the papers and stuff like that. So, with that, I was able to walk out of the place. I just scooted out of there, ran down a block, got down the subway and I'm going like this, man, why didn't I stay sweating behind this pizza oven rather than come aboard with Anthony? But I didn't. I was running down the train station with no job. [audience laughter] 

 

So, now, I didn't know what to do at first. So, I just laid low for about three days. Then Anthony called me up. And I said, “Anthony, you took me away from this job. Now, what am I going to do? I'm out of a job. This lasted a hot nine months, Anthony, I know, I liked it in the beginning, but what am I going to do now? I'm out of a job.” He says, “Let you take it easy. Don't worry about it. You meet me at the Woolworth Building tomorrow morning.”

 

I didn't really want to meet this guy anywhere or any of his friends at that point. [audience laughter] But when Anthony said to meet him somewhere, you usually went and you met him. [audience laughter] So, I did as I was told. I went out to the Woolworth Building, met Anthony, we go up to the ninth floor and we meet his lawyer. We walk in there, and he hands me a brown bag. I says, “What is this, lunch?” He goes, “No, are you a wise guy?” He says, “Open the bag.” So, I open the bag, and it's $38,000 in there. And I said, , “What is this for?” He says, “You see the man over there?” He goes next to my lawyer. He goes, “That's the owner of the pizzeria.” 

 

Okay. That's the only pizzeria that's going to be your pizzeria in a couple of minutes. [audience laughter] “This is pretty good. This is nice of you, Anthony. I'm sorry I yelled at you before.” [audience laughter] Sorry, I got a little excited. He says, “Go sit down by the lawyer, put everything in your name and you are the owner of the pizzeria.” I says, “I can't believe.” I'm saying, “This is unbelievable, Anthony. This is just about too much for me-- This is beautiful thing. [audience laughter] This is my dream. This is my dream working many, many years.” 

 

So, lo and behold, I get the pizzeria. I go down to Brooklyn, I set it up, I clean up the store. I name it DiSalvo's Pizza, home of the baby calzone. I was the only one in Brooklyn or in New York to make a little baby calzone. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]

 

From then and now, I've never even seen it anywhere. But here I am. It's my dream. It's my dream. I buy neon. The business is going good. This was like, in October, November, my accountant can't believe it because I'm tripling the business. The business is quadrupling within about five months. It's like five times the amount that the guys previously were doing. So, things are looking good. Like I said, I put neon in the window, I framed it with green, I put Coca Cola in red and I put pizza in white the Italian flag. [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

It was real nice. And the young kids in the area could see it from blocks away and said, “Richie, that looks really cool, man. We could see you five blocks away.” It was a nice sign [audience laughter] and I really liked it. I spent money on these antique Coke bottles. I put them on the table. My heart was really into it. This is my dream, man. And now, I put fresh flowers in the antique Coke bottles every day, give it a nice, homey look for the ladies and the kids. It was nice. I was painting it up. I was putting tile. I bought an air conditioner. Okay, so, October, November, December, January, February, March, I'm doing really good, fixed this place up nice and I was making some good money. My dream was there. 

 

Now, what happened is it was my first time in business, and I really didn't plan things well. I was so excited that Anthony had set me up. I didn't plan on the fact that the summer was coming along and the school that I was selling a lot of pizza to was going to close that. It was a residential area. A lot of people go on vacation. So, my business was started to take a downturn. It went down half. It went down a little bit more than that. 

 

And then, July came, and everybody was out of town. The business was down. Now, in the meantime, Bobby Cash was coming in for Anthony's payments every week and I was paying him off, and it was no problem. I paid him off. I had money for supplies. I was paying the store off. I paid my workers, everything was great. So, now, this one week, I told Bobby Cash, “Bobby, I don't have the $500 this week. Could you come next week?” He goes to me, “Yeah, but don't let this happen too often.” So, he says, “All right, we'll double up next week.” I says, “Fine, I'll pick up the business.” I told him what was going on. 

 

So, the third week comes by, he comes back, he comes down and he comes in the store. He gets a little irritated. And I said, “Can I speak to Anthony?” And at this point in time, he says, “No, Anthony's not in the picture right now. I'm collecting the money for Anthony.” So, my dream's becoming a nightmare already. [audience laughter] So, now, Bobby comes down the last time, and he throws me up against the wall. I'm thinking of all the stories that he used to tell me when we were having a good about how he shakes people upside down off a 15-story construction site to get money for Anthony, and this is not a good thing. [audience laughter] 

 

So, he leaves the store. He goes, “I'm going to come back tomorrow, and you need to have the money.” I says, “All right, I'll get it up somehow.” Anyway, with that, I knew there was no way I was going to get the money, so I just shut the store down. I moved out of Brooklyn. I went out to Long Island to my sister's house. I was trying to figure out a plan how I'm going to get these guys their money. 

 

Anyway, I'm out there, two weeks in Long Island, trying to hide, trying to calm down, trying to lay low, but I'm sick. Anyway, one particular night, I get a knock at the door. I peer out the window and who's there? It's Eddie LeBlanc. It's Frankie California and it's Bobby Cash. [audience laughter] So, I look around, turn around about my sister and I'm ready to say, “Eileen--" Maybe I can tell Eileen to tell him I'm not here, but I can't really bring this to my sister's house. I did this myself. I have to take care of this myself. 

 

So, summon all the courage I can get up, I open the door, I says, “What's up?” They says, “Anthony's in the car. He wants to speak to you.” I says, “Okay, let me get my jacket.” So, took off all my jewelry. I told Eileen, “I'll be back in a little while.” [audience laughter] We go down the driveway into the car. He says, “Get in the back. Anthony's in the back.” And Eddie LeBlanc, this scary individual, sits right next to me. Okay. But Anthony says, “Take off.” So, we take off down the road, nobody saying a word. Get on the Long Island Express. We're riding for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and nobody's saying a word. The silence is deafening. We're driving. My head is down. I try to speak to Anthony. I tell him, ‘The store this summer--” He don't want to hear about it. [audience laughter] 

 

So, at this point, I don't really know what's going on. We're just driving and nobody's saying a word. So, finally, Anthony speaks. He goes, “Richie, you remember the IOU that we signed in my lawyer's office?” And I says, “Yes.” Again, I try to tell him about this and the summer came and the air condition. And he tells me to shut up. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we're driving along and out of the corner of my eye, I see Anthony going like this. My stomach is flipping, my heart is racing, my head goes down even further. He comes out with the IOU and he goes, “Remember this IOU that you signed in my lawyer's office?” And I says, “Yeah, Anthony, but the summer--” Everybody starts laughing. He rips it up. He goes, “Richie, you're a standup guy. When you get the money, you take care of it. If you don't get it, don't worry about it. You look a little sick, are you all right?” [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

I said, “Yes, I'm fine, but I have a date tonight, Anthony. Could you get me home immediately?” [audience laughter] And with that, I was thinking the next time I went out to eat, it was in a diner. I didn't care who took care of me. I ate by myself, I paid with my own money and it was one of the best dinners I had in a long time. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

I'll just stick to my guns, how I was brought up. If I want to make money, I'll do it, how I was raised to. That's work hard. Do it yourself. Don't count on anybody. Hard work in America will do the trick. That's my story.