In 2016 they were named restaurant of the year.
In 2022 they were named as one of the top restaurants to visit in America.
In 2022 and 2023 they were named the best Italian restaurant and best wait staff.
The restaurant we are talking about is Illio’s
We spoke with Dennis Illio about the history of the restaurant and the bottled pasta sauce of Illio’s that has made its way onto supermarket shelves.
Q – Dennis, how long had the restaurant been in business before you started to bottle your pasta sauce?
A – We started in 1994. So, this is our 30th anniversary. We’re doing up a flyer and were having a big 30th anniversary celebration in September (2024). But some friends of ours from Tops market were talking to my father, fellow paisans and they said, “Hey, Illio we want to get local products in these top’s markets.” Back before those local days, to get anything produced, back in the early 90s, they didn’t really have smaller manufacturing plants that were certified to do 500 cases. You had to; I remember Redwing wanted a minimum of 5000 cases. So, no little guy would have afforded to really afford to put his product in stores. Then some of these pop-up companies started. I remember North Coast in Pennsylvania. We drove all the way to Pennsylvania to take a look at making our dressing and pasta sauce. We did it with a private label out of Rochester, New York. Tops market said, “Listen, we love your product. Do you think you could get it bottled and put it in our stores?” My father found a couple of places and now you can see all the independent sauce all over the place due to the manufacturing available.
Q – Besides Tops where else is your sauce available?
A – Wegmans. We do a lot online. Made in America stores. 7-11’s. Our main ones are Tops, Wegmans, Market In The Square. If there’s some demand in the independent stores they will order our product.
Q – What do you sell a bottle of your pasta sauce for?
A – It ranges anywhere from $2.99 to $3.49, all the way up to $4.99. It’s reasonable. It depends on the supermarket themselves. They all have different pricing. And, there’s always promotions. I know Tops has a promotion going on right now. I know Save A Lot, more of the Aldi style stores work on a smaller margin.
Q – For a time Wegmans was selling their own pasta sauce for $.99 a bottle. Then you have Rao’s who sell their pasta sauce for $6.99 a bottle. You have to wonder how many people step into a grocery store and pay $6.99 for a bottle of pasta sauce.
A – Its interesting. So everybody has a market. There’s the Rao market. Actually when I was at a show, a retail show, they were selling for $12 a bottle. I asked “Do you sell em?” They said “Yeah. We sell enough.” Exactly. You’re happy with the amount you sell, that’s fine. Everybody has a market. A lot of times we find people who buy the cheaper sauces will use it as a base and then they’ll add all their own stuff to it. For people who use our sauce, just open it up and use it directly. Serve it and people will love it. That’s kind of what happens.
Q – The most expensive pasta sauce I ever saw was Sonoma Williams, $20 for a bottle.
A – That’s an interesting one. Wow! That’s something.
Q – Who made the decision to start bottling your pasta sauce?
A – My father used to always say listen to the customer. They’ll tell you what to do. The gentleman from Tops were regular customers. They loved it. They said Tops is going in a new direction. We’re going to start adding independent products, which was great. We still to this day sell our sauce in quartz and pints from our restaurant and that’s still very popular. People will come in and buy a gallon of sauce for the holidays. So, we still do a lot of that. The ones that we have in the store now is our marinara sauce. The reason we went with the marinara sauce is because it’s your basic standard tomato, onion, garlic, seasonings. Very nutritional. Low-sodium. It’s a very nutritional sauce. No pork in it. Our house sauce we use pork bones. Some people like it. That’s how we kind of did that. That’s kind of where we’ve gone. Whatever the customer wanted that’s what we did.
Q – Besides the pasta sauce, you’re also selling salad dressing and breadcrumbs. What product really sells the best for you out of those three?
A – Our best product, actually number one is our Italian dressing. That’s our most popular. That’s also a marinade so people marinated with their chicken, and seafood. It’s a good base. You moisturize the chicken with vinegar and tenderize a little bit. But, our dressing is very good. It’s got multiple purposes, but that’s our most popular one. Then we turned it into a balsamic at the same time. If you take off 2 ounces of our oil, it’s seasoned oil, you can use it to cook with and then you add balsamic to the bottle of dressing and now you have a delicious balsamic vinaigrette dressing. So multipurpose.
Q – Your father was a wrestler for good many years. Then he decided to open a pizzeria. What did he know about running a pizzeria? He had four employees. They must have provided some guidance for him.
A – Yeah. He was blessed with loyal employees all the way through. He only had a fifth grade education. My mother had a high school diploma. That’s it. But, they opened it up and through the blessing of many good friends and accountants and staff they kind taught him how to run a business. Coming from Italy he knew he was not going to be a wrestler forever. He never wanted to be hungry like he was in Italy. So, what was the best way in America to survive and never be hungry? That was to open a restaurant.
Q – What year did he expand from a pizzeria to our restaurant?
A – 1968 we added on a banquet room. We’ve expanded 13 times here. But, 1968 is when we started to do more banquets and more food, complete food items. So, it really became more than just 300 pizzas a night it became dinners and everything else too. Then our staff grew. We now have over 100 employees at the restaurant.
Q – Have you had any famous people walk through the doors of Illio’s over the years?
A – Oh yeah. Chris Berman. Jim Kelly. Coach McPherson from Syracuse (University). We had John Kasich when he was running for president. It’s all pretty cool. It’s amazing the people that come through that are celebrities. All of our customers we try to treat them like there are a celebrity. Many of the wrestlers are always here. Rob Van Dam was just here. We actually got all the Buffalo Bills coming in on Thursday. When Chris Berman was traveling with ESPN he was here all the time. It was great. A great friend. A lot of movie stars coming through now that Buffalo is a hotspot. Actually our restaurant has been used in nine movies so far. I’ve been in eight of them. I’ve played everything from a senator to a maître d’ to a news reporter to a shoe salesman selling skates. So, it’s pretty interesting.
Q – It’s been a second career for you!
A – Well, not really. (Laughs). It’s more for the fun and hobby of it type of thing. You don’t get rich on that stuff that’s for sure. It’s a fun thing. But, I enjoy it and it’s great for the restaurant. People come in all the time and say, “Oh, My God! For me we were watching a Hallmark movie Dennis and there you were! And then we saw the restaurant. We saw the lounge. We saw the outside. It’s pretty neat.
Q – Are the celebrities seated in a special room in the restaurant where they won’t be bothered by fans asking for autographs or are they seated in the restaurant itself?
A – We have a room where it can be private if they like. We’ve been blessed all clientele is pretty used to seeing a lot of you never know who’s here having dinner. So, it could be the County executive. It could be the head coach of the bills. Nobody really bothers them while they’re eating. So, it works out pretty good. We just had Rob Van Dam and he said he wanted to sit out with the people. I said, “No problem.” He sat right in the middle of the dining room. Nobody bothered him while he was eating. He was great. They just let him enjoy his dinner. We do have total privacy if they need it. Even when Gov. Kasich came in, he sat right in the middle of the dining room! I didn’t even know who he was at the time. Everybody else knew who he was.
Official website: iliodipaolos.com
