The Pizza King

Victor "Vic" Cassano Senior was born on June 4, 1922 and passed away January 1, 2002. Vic Cassano is my great great uncle, being that he is my grandma's uncle. Vic was originally a grocer, from Kettering, Ohio in Dayton who established the "Cassano's Pizza King" restaurants on June 4, 1953 along with his mother in-law Caroline "Mom" Donisi. The restaurant Cassano's currently is operating in 34 locations in Dayton, Ohio.

I spoke to my grandma about my great great uncle and she shared with me the following, "Mom Donisi was Vic's mother-in law and she had the recipe. Vic owned a small grocery store and opened the pizza house in the front. I am the only living one who was there opening night. I was 14 and sat on a stool and answered the phone and took orders as they came in. It was the first pizza in the Dayton area and it was an instant success. Adding a second store within a year where I worked summers and weekends."

Photos from the early days of the restaurant 

Harry Cassano (my great grandpa on the left) along side his brother Vic

The business was booming, so expansion was inevitable. In the mid 1970's Cassano's was ranked by The National Restaurant Association as one of the top 4 pizza chains in the United States. I used ancestry.com as a resource to find some of my great great uncle's advertising mechanisms, a lot of which were put in the ad section of local yearbooks. Below are a few examples of yearbook ads made by my great great uncle. 

Chaminade-Julienne High School 1958

University of Dayton, 1962

He reached great success with his restaurant, but my great great uncle didn't always have it so easy. From his obituary of March 20, 2002 in the Dayton Daily News:

".... A son of Italian immigrants, Cassano faced a life of challenges from very early on. When he was only 2, his father died, and his mother, who neither spoke nor read English, was forced to place her three boys in a Cincinnati orphanage. Years later, the mother reunited the family. Cassano went on to become a well-known humanitarian in throughout Ohio, knowing well the struggles of others and eager to give them a hand. According to a Dayton Daily News story printed in 1981, Cassano attributed his kindness to knowing he'd be held accountable after death. "When you get to those pearly gates, you're going to be judged by what you do for your fellow man," he said. He also attributed his success to growing up in the U.S., and to going the extra step for the customer. "The fun of the free enterprise system is that you can go as far as you want if you are willing to offer a little more than the average person," he told the Daily News. He is survived by two brothers, his wife, Anne, two sons, two daughters, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren." Vic Cassano is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio. He is buried with his wife Anne Marie. Underneath their last name says "Together Forever" which is a display of how much he loved his wife. The plaques are decorated with dainty flowers represent the frailty of life, according to the Stories Told In Stone Cemetery Iconology by Gaylord Cooper.  Vic Cassano left a legacy behind in Dayton. In the magazine article "A Slice of Dayton" Vic "Chip" Cassano III says about the hometown pizza brand, “It’s kind of what Dayton grew up on...Everybody knew my grandfather" I am very proud of my great great uncle for his entrepreneurship and success. I am happy to call "The Pizza King" an ancestor of mine and have enjoyed so much learning about the history of the business.