The next time you reach for a can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli or Beefaroni, think about the man behind the brand, who founded it in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Real Chef Boiardi/Boyardee
Born Ettore Boiardi in Northern Italy in 1897, he changed his first name to Hector upon arriving in the United States. While growing up, Boiardi worked alongside his father, a chef, in Italy, and landed an apprenticeship at a nearby restaurant at the age of 11. After further learning the trade elsewhere in Europe, he immigrated to the United States in 1914 and immediately started working at upscale restaurants located in hotels, like the Ritz-Carlton and the Plaza.
A Move to Cleveland & His Own Restaurant
By 1917, Boiardi was ready for a change, so he moved to Cleveland and worked for the Union Club and the Hotel Winton before starting his own restaurant, with the help of his partners.
Located at 917-920 Woodland, right where the street hits East 9th, this was the perfect space for an upscale Italian restaurant: Boiardi’s specialty. He called it Il Giardino d’Italia, which translates to The Garden of Italy.
The restaurant was in the spot labeled “C. Rini” on the map below.
(The map above is from the 1920s. The space is now a cloverleaf exit where 90 meets East 9th.)
Packaging and Marketing His Own Spaghetti Sauce
As the story goes, diners at the restaurant asked for samples of Boiardi’s spaghetti sauce so that they could take it home. They found it so tasty that they wanted jars of it for their own, in-house meals, so Boiardi complied.
Around this same time, the first self-serve grocery store, a Piggly Wiggly, opened up in Memphis, TN. Prior to this, stores operated on the old model, where people would walk in, hand the employee their list, and the employee gathered their order. Everything took place at the same counter. With the new shopping model, people walked into the store, found what they needed on their own, and then headed to a cashier.
Not only did these new-fangled grocery stores change the way that people shopped for food, but they also led to another need: pre-packaged food. Without an employee on hand to weigh out flour and other things, someone needed to pre-package those goods and place them on an easy-to-reach shelf for shoppers. They were called “convenience foods.”
Convenience foods already existed in some form, like canned Campbell’s soups and Nabisco’s (National Biscuit Company) cardboard-packaged crackers, but these newly designed grocery stores called for other pre-made goods as well, like Chef Boiardi’s spaghetti sauce.
Boiardi, with the help of Maurice and Eva Weiner, opened up his manufacturing center in Cleveland in 1928, importing ingredients from Europe. At the time, they were the largest importers of Italian Parmesan cheese in the United States.
A Move and The War Years
By 1938, Boiardi’s company needed a larger manufacturing space, so they moved to Milton, Pennsylvania, an easier place to grow their own tomatoes and mushrooms. Demand for the sauce grew.
Around this time, the product’s name started to change, as people had a hard time pronouncing “Boiardi.” Different spellings were used, some using dashes to make it simpler, like the example above of ‘Boi-ar-di,” but eventually it ended up with the name we know it as today: Boyardee.
Although the company survived the Great Depression and also produced rations for the troops during World War II (leading to Hector Boiardi’s Gold Star recognition), cash flow was tight. In 1946, Boiardi sold the business to American Home Foods for 6 million dollars. (The equivalent of $110 million in today’s dollars.)
The Later Years
Despite selling the company, Boiardi still appeared in its advertising through the 1970s. He also kept making products for the business to sell and ran a series of restaurants in the Cleveland area, up until his death in 1985.
Hector Boiardi is buried in All Souls Cemetery in Chardon, Ohio, alongside his wife of over 60 years.
This article’s topic was inspired by Dennis Lee’s Food is Stupid Substack. Go check it out.
Leave a Reply