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| - I don't know if it's fair to review Guarino's as my tiny sampling was during the Feast of the Assumption and I just wasn't impressed. I picked up my cavatelli and meatball from a street vendor and marched my way down the street with much anticipation. The meatball was good. Nice flavor. The sauce was bland. I wanted more! More flavor, more something. I'll definitely have to give this place another shot next time I visit!
Even if the food wasn't my favorite, the history is remarkable. This is the oldest restaurant in Cleveland and has a history of entertaining mobsters. Guarino's has played host to Joe Torre and Dean Martin and, of course, don't forget the wise guys.
"Jack White, the last of the big-time mobsters, used to love to sit in the garden in the back and drink our homemade wine," says Phillips, referring to the nickname for racketeer James Licavoli. "He thought it was really peaceful back there."
In the '70s, Licavoli was known as "King of the Hill," as in Murray Hill. He isn't the only mobster who tried to lay claim to the area over the decades.
There was also Moe Dalitz, the Cleveland racketeer who would go on to build up Las Vegas in the 1940s. And, don't fuhgettabout the Mayfield Road Mob, which rose to prominence during Prohibition.
"Guarino's used to serve two kinds of coffee cups during Prohibition," says Phillips, who is half Sicilian and half Irish. "One for coffee and the other for wine - a lot of places did that back then."
The Mayfield Road Mob also paved the way for Martin's singing career, landing him gigs in joints it controlled, according to Nick Tosches' book "Dino."
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