Christmas at Caputo’s: Nostalgic Holiday Traditions at an Italian Grocery Store in Chicago’s Suburbs

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You probably remember the old-time cartoon characters – Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, and others – who picked up the scent of delicious food and then magically floated through the air, following their noses to the good smells. I had a similar sensation over 40 years ago, walking into Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market in Elmwood Park (2400 N. Harlem Ave.) for the first time: I felt myself drifting through smells of fresh-baked bread and cookies, slightly funky though deeply appetizing aromas of many different cheeses, and tangy scents of sausage. All around me were colorful bottles of oils and sauces; overflowing bins of very reasonably priced produce; one of the best selections of fresh fruit and vegetables in Chicagoland; and a rainbow of multi-colored olives, including even the fresh bitter ones awaiting curing.

Christmas has its rituals: the trimming of the tree, the opening of the gifts, the holiday table. For me, a trip to Caputo’s is one of our rituals and has been for decades. Once located in a much smaller space further north on Harlem Avenue, Caputo’s now has a sprawling store as well as nine other locations in Chicago’s suburbs. I’ve been to some of those newer spots, but a ritual requires the repetition of specific and traditional steps. So I keep visiting Caputo’s in Elmwood Park, every year.

Angelo Caputo, like so many Italians, manifested a destiny for himself in the United States. Born in Mola di Bari to a family with a wholesale grocery, he gained his U.S. citizenship by enlisting in the U.S. military. In 1958, he opened a market at Harlem and Wrightwood Avenues to serve a growing Italian American community. One member of that community was current Caputo’s CEO Robertino Presta, Sr. Presta was thirteen when he started working at Caputo’s, where he met his future wife, Angelo’s daughter Antonella Caputo.

Caputo’s first store offered the ”specialty” Italian foods that were sometimes challenging to procure in 1950s American supermarkets. During the Eisenhower Administration, Italian food for many Americans was basically spaghetti and meatballs, and perhaps pizza. Caputo’s educated many Chicagoans about foods of Italy while giving Italians – and there were a lot of us in the area – a taste of foods their families left behind, foods you probably still won’t find at Da Jewels.

In the Old Country, many Italians made their own wine. Caputo’s keeps alive that tradition by providing in-season wine grapes, as well as pre-pressed juice; if you want to stomp grapes yourself, they carry large plastic tubs made for that purpose, and all the other equipment needed to become a home vintner.  

Today, Caputo’s is a full-service grocery with the usual foods and home supplies, but what attracts many are the Italian products that are hard to find in the United States. For example, Robertino Presta, Jr. tells us that they carry fresh Percoca peaches, in season; once you’ve had these peaches, we’re told, they will become your favorite.

La Bella Romana is Caputo’s house brand, and you’ll see its label on marinara sauce, eggplant salad, and baked specialties like panzerotti, focaccia, and calzone. Family matriarch Romana Caputo left her recipes for Italian cookies, and they are superb: beautiful and delicate, the perfect complement to an espresso.

La Bella Romana cannoli are made fresh, and the shells are super crisp (“We make them in house,” Presta, Sr. tells us, “so they stay crisp.”) with lush, creamy filling. A good cannolo is hard to beat, so if you want to save your waistline by limiting the number of sweet baked goods around the house, leave the cookies, good as they are, and take the cannoli.

Caputo’s La Bella Romana bakery turns out outstanding bread, but there’s some Italian bread you can’t make in the U.S. because its unique flavor comes from the Italian environment, including Italian air and water (yes, those humble ingredients matter a lot, says Robertino, Jr.). “We’re working on getting some bread from Italy,” added Presta, Sr. “There’s a famous town in Puglia, and we’re going to be bringing it in halfway baked and frozen loaves; we’ll finish the bread here.”

Even though the neighborhood around Caputo’s remains largely Italian, the Elmwood Park Caputo’s now serves multiple ethnicities. Caputo’s stores tailor their offerings to, for instance, Greek, Asian, Indian, Ukrainian, and Brazilian shoppers, based on local demographics. “As we’ve grown,” Presta, Sr. explains, “we’re reaching out to every ethnicity. We now have some excellent tamales and we’re bringing in a lot of Polish products, like Polish honey, and we private-label our own Polish juices.”

Lined along the top of Caputo’s deli counter are gorgeous olive varieties: little green ones, bright red ones, big purple ones, tiny brown ones. If your default olive choices are Spanish ones with pimento or waxy black ones from California, you might consider trying some of the enticing varieties on display at Caputo’s.

Sometimes I walk by the deli counter just to hear Italian grannies shouting their requests to the butchers: “Due chili di prosciutto! Un pezzo di parmigiano!” Brings me back. Truth be told, however, many shoppers are now speaking Spanish; times change, and that’s a good thing: check out the tamale vendor outside the front door of the Elmwood Park store.

What remains the same is the cozy family feeling of shopping at Caputo’s. Members of the family live within a few blocks of each other, and if you call the hotline number printed at the bottom of every receipt, you’ll speak directly with a family member.

For an Italian American, Caputo’s during the holidays is a sensory and nostalgic experience. There’s the pepperoni sausages my aunt used to put out every Christmas Eve; the provolone my Genovese grandmother served me for lunch; and the panettone, the tall Italian fruitcake that was – and is – our traditional Christmas dessert. Throughout Christmas dinner we’re eating olives from Caputo’s, especially the big red and green ones, which are, for our family, the traditional signs that the holidays are here.