The popular Guido’s Pizza & Catering Restaurant will celebrate a significant milestone by hosting a block party to commemorate its 60th anniversary on July 19 at 214 West Main Street in Ravenna beginning at 12 p.m.
“I am proud to be a part of it and it is humbling too,” Manager Scott Hutchinson told The Weekly Villager on July 2. “For us, it is a normal week, we just wake up and go to work like everybody else. Then to stop and think about what this place actually is, it is cool to be part of it.”
When ownership changed hands, Guido’s son Sam Cipriano took over running the family business, but Leonard and Hutchinson acknowledged that the business will be transferred into a third generation of ownership soon.
The longtime Ravenna restaurant will shut down West Main Street for the entire afternoon for a day of celebration, inviting residents of Ravenna and Portage County to participate in recognizing Guido’s for reaching its 60th year.
Activities will include live music until dusk, cornhole, children’s activities such as a bounce house, a dunk tank, raffle baskets and a car show.
“The whole point is to celebrate and thank everyone who has been here the whole time,” said Manager Mindy Leonard. “We are rooted in other families in this community, and we want to say thank you and give back and party with everyone because of what an honor it is to be in this town for 60 years.”
Hutchinson said that the restaurant is expecting at least 100 classic cars to show up for the celebration and will be parked on West Main Street. Guido’s has enlisted the services of Joe Mazzola, a car show enthusiast.
He added that there will also by a trophy awarded to the best-looking vehicle from 1966, which marked the restaurant’s first year in business.
Since 1966, the City of Ravenna has been home to Guido’s, as Guido Cipriano, Sam and Mindy’s grandfather, worked with his brother-in-law, Augie, to open a new restaurant on Meridian Street as he worked to support his family of 10 children.
According to Hutchinson, even when his grandfather originally started, it was a family affair.
“I would hope that he wanted it to continue as a family business but even back then, we had probably 40-50% of our staff was actual family. Now it is probably 20-30% actual family but there is still a ton of family members working here to this day,” he noted.
Hutchinson said that even before opening the restaurant, the Cipriano family already had made a home for themselves in the City of Ravenna.
“They were here for a long time. Lots of stories and memories go back to when Guido’s kids were kids, prior to Guido’s opening” he said. “It is cool to know that we have left our footprint here in Ravenna and I don’t think we are going anywhere anytime soon.”
In 1989, the restaurant moved to its current location on West Main Street.
As Guido’s has planted deep roots in the community, Hutchinson also spoke of how the family business developed roots in the community.
“When you apply the food that we have available and try to keep up the quality and try to add top-notch service to it, it is easy for that to go a long way,” he added.
Hutchinson said that one staple that has made Guido’s continue as a popular food destination has been retaining several of the recipes that Guido and Augie originally used in 1966.
According to Leonard, the restaurant’s reputation speaks for itself as it is usually the first phone call for an interested party in need of catering.
“When someone gets married, they are having it catered,” she said. “They are sending food to someone who is ill or unable to move, one phone call and we can cater to every single person who needs our help.”
Hutchinson lauded the restaurant’s growth, referencing how it has achieved several catering milestones.
“We used to think a 100-person catering was huge and now we are catering events for nearly 1300 people, so we have come a long way over the years,” he said.
As the 60th anniversary nears, Sam and Mindy said that they can only think of what their late grandfather would say about the family business celebrating six decades of success in the same city.
“I think he would love to see that we have upheld the tradition since he has been gone and we are setting records all of the time,” Sam said.
