Miss Viafore’s? Say ciao to Tacoma’s Italian sausage kings at their new market

The Verone family has been crafting Italian sausage, using only all-natural pork casings with spices and water, since 1923 — well before then if you count Joe Verone’s grandfather developing the recipe in Italy before immigrating to the U.S.

A family recipe for the flagship sweet Italian has broadened to include a Louisiana hot, jalapeno cheddar, breakfast sausage and classic German bratwurst.

Tacomans might recognize the Verone name from restaurant menus including The Cloverleaf, Macaluso’s and Joeseppi’s, all longtime customers of the wholesale arm that is Verone Sausage Co. For years retail-ready sausage has been sold only at Stadium Thriftway, but loyal customers found creative ways to use five to 10 pounds of bulk sausage purchased straight from the source, during the many years the brand was only available wholesale.

“The legacy of something like that and the history of that keeps me connected,” said Renee Verone, who, with her father, this week opened the first Verone’s retail shop in more than 30 years at 604 Regents Blvd. in Fircrest.

“I always knew he wanted to open up a new store,” she said. “It’s a little later in life than he wanted. It’s exciting to see my dad who has worked his whole life to save this, to make sure this company exists, and has always been part of the community. Even in retirement, he was able to make that vision come to life.”

That vision entails, of course, Verone’s sausage. It also means sandwiches made with said sausage; meats and cheeses typical of an Italian deli in a cooler; soon, cannoli — “you cannot find a good cannoli here!” Renee lamented — and eventually party trays and grandma-style Sicilian pizza.

Inspired by the culture of Italian markets on the East Coast and in Italy, Renee hopes Verone’s Italian Kitchen & Sausage Co. will fill a void for “something good that you can get really quickly … something with a good Italian flavor.”

Joe was raised in a “typical immigrant” household, with an “Italian-speaking grandma that’s never learned to speak English,” laughed Renee. His mother was from Sicily, his father from Calabria, and those cultures melded into the Verone family’s new home in America, in Tacoma, where homemade bread, pasta and pizza were mainstays at the dinner table.

“I’m hoping that we can bring my dad’s favorite comfort foods and share them with the community,” she said.

The “import corner” will grow with time, as they learn from customers and connect with more Italian importers.

THE VERONE SAUSAGE LEGACY

If you hear an echo of a “hey boss” greeting emanating from that Fircrest address, you’ve come to the right place: This location was home to David Viafore’s namesake Italian delicatessen for 35 years. He opted for retirement last spring, but it turns out the space was not destined to stay vacant for long.

“It’s always been a family feeding the other families,” Renee told The News Tribune last Saturday. “He wanted to see another family in the neighborhood, and he thought we would be a good fit.”

The Verones had the enviable foundation of nearly a century of sausage production in Tacoma. For many years, the product found a home in the displays of Pete’s Quality Meats and, until the early ‘80s, at the Verones’ own shop at 34th Street and Pacific Avenue. Joe Verone continued in his father’s stead, running it — with the help of nearly every family member, Renee insisted — after returning from the Vietnam War.

He expanded the butcher shop into a full-fledged deli, with sandwiches and pizza. An electrical fire curtailed that aspect of the family business, but the sausage never stopped.

“Working in the sausage shop is a family tradition — every one of us at some point in time have all contributed,” she said, whether part-time, as she has since she was a teenager, and full-time, as her son Dagan, 24, now does as their “No. 1 guy manufacturing sausage while we are working.”

Her brother has also assisted here and there, and though he has pursued other professional interests, he has always been supportive.

Several years ago, Joe fell ill and the family pondered closing the sausage company.

“I had to get real with how I feel about this,” recalled Renee. “How committed to this am I?”

She had a vision to bring back a retail shop and “to grow it into something new, something else.”

They agreed on the idea and a timeline. If it didn’t work out by the brand’s centennial, they would close that chapter of the Verone family history.

“Then it did become me,” laughed Renee, the official heiress to the Verone Sausage Co. — and its new era.

“At this age, I could probably look back and say that part of it is, it starts off that it’s loyalty to your dad because this is what you do,” she said. “But I’m a history teacher, and I know for sure, I always loved the stories, I loved the history, I loved the stories behind every piece of food, I loved the stories behind every recipe. I listened completely to my grandmother. I thoroughly enjoy the tradition of what my family did.”

In other words, “Every important thing that has been said has happened over the sausage table.”

VERONE’S SAUSAGE COMPANY & ITALIAN KITCHEN

▪ 604 Regents Blvd., Fircrest, 253-327-1663, veronesausage.com

▪ Holiday Hours: Dec. 23, 3-6 p.m.; Dec. 24, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; Dec. 29-31, 3-6 p.m.

▪ Standard Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m.

This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM.