Wednesday, July 7, 2004 | 8:12 a.m.
No name in Joe Collura's family is without significance.
His family has been in the restaurant business since 1952, and the expertise they brought from their native Chicago is alive and well at Chicago Joe's Restaurant in downtown Las Vegas.
But just in case you're thinking the restaurant is named after Collura, it isn't. It's actually named after his uncle Joe. But it could also have been named for Collura's father, or even his grandfather.
Yes, they all have the same first name. And for Collura, it's a badge of honor. "I like the name Joe," Collura, 47, said. "The Joes in my family were all good people. I can't say anything bad about them at all."
Ever since Collura can remember, he's been spending time at, or working for, his family's many restaurants. He enjoyed a normal childhood, playing baseball with his friends, going to school and watching lots of TV. But Collura says he never doubted the restaurant world would be his ultimate destination.
"This seemed like destiny," Collura said of the small, intimate eatery at 820 S. Fourth St., a block west of Las Vegas Boulevard. "I don't know anything else. This is my life."
Chicago Joe's occupies a house built in 1933, and its structure has remained intact. With its red-brick exterior, small porch and white shutters on the front windows, it could still be mistaken for a house, if not for the large "Chicago Joe's" sign on the front.
The interior contains two dining areas, one with wood flooring and the other with basic tile. The dominant exterior color, red, continues inside, with a red-brick fireplace in the rear and the red-and-white checkered tablecloths covering 14 tables.
The kitchen is not visible from the dining area, and wine bottles are nestled in a rack by the fireplace. While the building had to be converted to a restaurant, some of its original elements remain, including a grooved, striped pattern on the walls and ceiling of the main dining area.
As the downtown area struggles to compete for local business, Collura is proud that his establishment remains a busy lunch and dinner spot.
"We're not going anywhere," he said. "We've had tough times, but we stuck it out."
Into the fold
Collura was born in Chicago in 1956, and it didn't take long before his exposure to the restaurant world began.
His family's first restaurant business began with Nino's, a pizzeria opened by his grandmother, Maria Penacchio, in 1952. Back to the significance of names, "Nino" a nickname for "Anthony," Collura's uncle Joe's middle name.
Collura's entire family eventually helped out at Nino's, including his mother, Annette, his uncle and his father.
(Collura's grandfather, Joe, died at the age of 40 of tuberculosis, long before Collura was born.)
Business was good from the start, and soon the family opened a banquet hall for supplemental income. That establishment provided Collura's with his first taste of the business.
"I still remember helping out at the banquet hall," he said. "I was standing on a chair, filling cups with cole-slaw scoops because I was too short to reach on my own."
Eventually the banquet hall was closed and the family expanded Nino's to include both the pizzeria and a fine-dining restaurant.
Collura's formal introduction to the restaurant world came when he turned 14. He began as a dishwasher, working three nights a week.
It wasn't really a choice, Collura said.
"You didn't question coming to work," he said. "I wasn't forced. You just did it. That's the way it was done; when you graduated eighth grade, you went to work."
Collura never felt upset about it, however. He enjoyed spending time with his family, although at times it could get confusing.
"We had to come up with nicknames to keep track of every Joe," Collura remembers. "Dad was 'Big Joe,' Uncle Joe was 'Little Joe' and I was 'Joey.' "
Second home
Collura's second family was his Chicago neighborhood.
"Chicago seemed so much like home," he said. "For three blocks around everybody knew everybody. No one locked their doors. We all played baseball."
But as great as growing up in Chicago was for the Colluras, every now and then the family needed to get away from the weather.
"Every year my family would lock up the restaurant for two weeks and come to Las Vegas," Collura said. "I remember it being very hot, but I also remember having lots of fun, even when my parents would stick us in a movie theater or in the swimming pools at the hotels. No one had them in my neighborhood."
Collura always remembers looking forward to coming back home, and as he got older he wanted to leave Chicago less and less.
"We wanted to stay home because we'd have the house to ourselves," he said, laughing. "I never imagined I'd be living in Las Vegas one day."
That day came much sooner than he expected. His father died in 1971, and soon after that his uncle proposed the family move.
"He proposed Las Vegas because he knew the town was growing and prosperous, and he thought it would be good for everyone," Collura said. "I remember that at first I didn't want to go, but my mother said, 'Try it for one year. If you don't like it, you can go back.' "
One year was all it took for Collura to realize there were many things he had overlooked about Las Vegas.
"I loved it here," he said. "There was little traffic, and it wasn't crowded back then. Plus, you could drive 20 minutes and be in the middle of nowhere. Now it takes a little longer, and you're usually not alone when you get there.
"But Las Vegas is my home now," he said. "I don't think I'll ever leave."
Family effort
By the time the family opened Chicago Joe's in 1975, Collura was already an accomplished cook.
"I worked my way from dishwasher to cook in three years," he said. "I had a mother and grandmother who showed me how to do things at the restaurant."
His specialty at Nino's was Chicago-style pizza, which Collura says is, unfortunately, a rarity in Las Vegas.
"I think it's the greatest pizza in the world," Collura said. "I don't think any pizza out here equals it."
At first only Maria, Annette, Collura's uncle and his wife, Joan, made the trip to Las Vegas, but ultimately the rest of the family, including his sisters Paulette, Mary and Caroline, made the journey.
"There's no one left in Chicago now," he said. "They're all happy here."
Chicago Joe's Restaurant opened after Collura and his family worked four months converting it into a restaurant.
Collura said the original menu featured traditional dishes most customers would find eclectic today, including tripe (stomach), braciole and chicken Vesuvio.
But as tastes changed, the family updated the menu to include more current fare. Some of the restaurant's contemporary favorites include shrimp parmigiana, chicken Angelo, veal marsala and stuffed artichoke.
"When we first opened, this was a pizza, pasta and clams place, and the menus were on the wall," he said. "When we became a restaurant, we got rid of all that."
Collura's first job at the Vegas establishment was dishwasher, with his uncle working the floor, mother Annette and Joan in the kitchen and one waiter. He was soon cooking full time again, although he soon decided to focus more on operations.
He took over ownership when his uncle passed away in 1989. His mother died in 1998, and he now co-owns the restaurant with his sister Mary.
Collura and his partner of 15 years, Marlene Livings, handle most of the day-to-day operations. The rest of his family members pursue their own interests, he said.
Giving back
Today, Chicago Joe's employs four waiters, four cooks and two dishwashers, allowing Collura more time to take time off and contribute to the community.
In addition to donating to the Children's Miracle Network and the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Collura also has been known to sponsor local athletes, including stock car racer Phil Dase in 1995.
He would have continued to support local racing, but suffered heavy economic losses when 4th Street was torn up to make it a one-way street later that year.
"That project took 18 months," Collura said. "It took 5 1/2 years to build business back."
Now that business has improved, Collura plans to get involved in racing in the near future.
"Racing is by far my favorite sport, although I'll always be a Cubs fan," he said. "My mother put the Cubs games on every day."
Despite Las Vegas' rapid growth, Collura said his restaurant continues to enjoy a steady clientele of familiar faces.
"I cannot tell you how many customers have been here from the beginning," he said. "And we're on the next generation now. I know so many customers we've gone out with. We've been at the weddings of some of them. These people you meet really become friends."
Although he has no plans for children, Collura intends to keep the "Joe's" namesake alive for as long as he can, although he jokingly remembers a time when he wanted to change it.
"When I was a kid, I wanted to be called Mark, because my favorite show was 'The Rifleman,' with Chuck Connors, and that was his character's name," Collura said. "Well, not long ago I actually had the honor and pleasure of Chuck Connors coming here to eat lunch. I didn't get to share the story with him, because it was so hectic. I just said, 'Thank you for being my childhood hero.' "
Chicago Mark's? Just doesn't sound the same.
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