RICHMOND (VA) - At the entrance to Mary Angela’s in Richmond, Virginia, two clocks hang side by side. One tells the time in Richmond; the other shows the time in Carini, a town in the province of Palermo, Sicily. Thousands of miles separate the two places, but the connection between them remains strong. The clocks offer a simple reminder that, for those who have left home to build a life elsewhere, distance does not necessarily mean disconnection.

Inside, images of Sicily line the walls, and the menu brings familiar Italian flavors to a city far from the Mediterranean. Here, food is more than a business. It is a way to preserve memories, pass down traditions and maintain a connection to the place where a family’s story began.

The story of Mary Angela’s began when Mario Lo Presti, a native of Carini, left Sicily for the United States and settled in Richmond in the early 1980s. Over the decades, the restaurant has become a gathering place for customers seeking Italian food and, for many, a taste of their own family history. Today, Mario’s nephew, Antonio Lo Presti, is helping carry that legacy forward. After several stays in Virginia, Antonio decided to move there permanently to work alongside his uncle and continue the family business. “I’m here to carry on my family’s tradition. My uncle Mario has been here for 40 years, and I’m proud to continue what he started,” Antonio says. The connection to Sicily is visible throughout the restaurant. Images of some of the island’s most recognizable landmarks, including the Greek Theatre of Taormina and Palermo Cathedral, decorate the walls. They are more than decorative touches: they keep a piece of home close, even as daily life unfolds thousands of miles away. “Over time, to preserve our roots, we decided to decorate the restaurant this way. Sicily and Italy are always in our hearts, and we’re happy to bring a part of our heart here to Richmond,” Antonio explains. “Every now and then, we look up and remember where we come from.”

That same attachment to tradition finds its way onto the table. The menu includes Sicilian-style focaccia, lasagna prepared in the Italian tradition and cannoli, one of the island’s signature desserts. These dishes connect customers who grew up in Italy with others who know the country through the stories and memories passed down by their parents and grandparents. Some customers are Italian immigrants; others are second- or third-generation Italian Americans looking for a connection to their heritage. For them, a meal can offer a way to rediscover familiar flavors or experience a tradition that has been part of their family for generations. “Their parents were Italian and moved here, and when they come to our restaurant, they reconnect with their heritage,” Antonio says. Over the years, Mary Angela’s has become more than a place to eat. It has helped foster relationships within Richmond’s Italian community, including a particularly strong network of people from Carini. The restaurant offers a place to meet, share experiences and maintain ties to a hometown that may be far away but remains close in memory. “We’ve built a family here. Our family is quite large and keeps growing, just as the community of people from Carini in Richmond continues to grow,” Antonio says.

Mario Lo Presti of Mary Angela’s (Photo by Ash Daniel)

A similar story is unfolding elsewhere in the city, where Gaetano Genova has built a business around the flavors and products of Italy. His journey in the United States began in 1995, when he was just 16. He arrived in Pennsylvania to join an uncle who owned an Italian restaurant, beginning a career in the food business that would shape much of his life. Gaetano spent nine years working at his uncle’s restaurant, followed by another nine years at a second establishment his uncle opened. Those years gave him extensive experience in the restaurant industry before family ties eventually brought him to Virginia. His brother had opened Pesce e Vino, a restaurant in Richmond with approximately 65 seats. After running the business for five years, his brother decided to sell. Gaetano saw an opportunity to move closer to him and begin a new chapter. “When he decided to sell the business, I took the opportunity to move to Richmond to be closer to him. That’s when we rebranded it as Casa Italiana,” Gaetano explains.

Since then, Casa Italiana has grown beyond its original restaurant concept. The dining area has expanded from approximately 65 to 120 seats, and additional space has allowed the brothers to develop a market selling Italian specialties and products. Customers can find focaccia, cookies and other items that are not always easy to find in conventional American supermarkets. One of the business’s most distinctive projects is Pasta & Basta, a brand that grew out of an experiment with fresh pasta. Gaetano and his brother initially began making ravioli and pappardelle almost as a hobby. When demand increased, they decided to invest in equipment imported from Italy. “We started making fresh pasta just for fun. Then we saw that there was demand, so we decided to buy a pasta-making machine from Italy,” Gaetano says. What began as a small experiment developed into a larger venture built around a straightforward idea: bringing Richmond fresh pasta that recalls the flavors and quality of Italy. The response from customers encouraged the brothers to invest further and expand their operation.

The market also reflects the variety of Italian regional cuisine, with a particular emphasis on Sicilian specialties. Its offerings include arancini, sfogliatelle, cartocci pastries, semolina bread and cornetti, alongside dishes such as braciole and osso buco. For customers familiar with these foods, the products can evoke memories of home. For others, they offer an introduction to Italy’s culinary traditions. Keeping the shelves stocked takes considerable effort. Some products are imported from Italy through a distribution and storage facility in New York. Rising product prices and shipping costs have made importing more expensive in recent years, but Casa Italiana continues to bring in products based on what customers request most often.

Gaetano has also noticed a change in the way Americans approach Italian food. Social media and international travel have helped make Italian cuisine more familiar to a wider audience. Customers who visit Italy and later return to Richmond often compare what they eat at Casa Italiana with the food they experienced abroad. According to Gaetano, some say the restaurant’s fresh pasta reminds them of what they ate in Italy. The same recognition happens in the market, where customers sometimes spot products, they remember buying or seeing during trips to Italy. Those familiar items can become a small but meaningful link between an experience abroad and everyday life in Virginia. Richmond’s Italian community extends well beyond recent arrivals. Families with roots in Italy have been part of the area for decades, and people from Carini have maintained particularly strong connections. Gaetano considers himself among the more recent arrivals and says customers travel to his business from outside Richmond, including people from Palermo who live in Williamsburg and Tennessee.

These connections span cities and generations. They are sustained by family relationships, shared experiences and the familiar rituals of food. In this setting, a restaurant or market can become much more than a commercial enterprise. It can serve as a meeting place, a source of familiar products and a way to pass traditions on to the next generation. The stories of Mary Angela’s and Casa Italiana follow different paths, but they share a common purpose: building a life in America without abandoning the culture that shaped them. Mario Lo Presti brought his Sicilian roots to Richmond and established a restaurant that his nephew Antonio is now helping carry forward. Gaetano Genova drew on decades of experience in the restaurant business to create a venture that brings Italian food and products to customers in Virginia. In both cases, food provides a language that crosses borders. A piece of focaccia, a plate of fresh pasta, a cannolo or a familiar product on a market shelf can bring back memories of a home, a street or a family table. At Mary Angela’s, the two clocks offer a fitting image of that enduring connection: one marking the time in Richmond, the other in Carini. Life may unfold thousands of miles from where it began, but the ties to home can remain part of every day.