Growing up in the city that never sleeps

Joe Morano tells everyone that he’s just a simple guy from New York.

He grew up in Bensonhurst a very Italian neighborhood with Steve

Schirripa who plays Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri on the hit HBO series

“The Sopranos.” Morano thinks of himself as a big kid and enjoys

playing sports. He has friends from New York who drop in to see him

at Ciao, his restaurant on Balboa Island.

The 48-year-old recently sat down with the Pilot’s Luis Pena over

a plate of tasty pasta to discuss growing up as an Italian Catholic

in Brooklyn along with the rest of his “simple” life.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. New York City -- it’s the greatest

city in the world. I’m glad I grew up there, and I grew up I think

during the greatest time, too. I grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s, and I

think that was a great time of growing up in this world, and this

country especially. I grew up with Mickey Mantle playing baseball. I

grew up in an Italian neighborhood. I learned a lot from my roots, my

family. You learn so much by being on the streets and going to

different neighborhoods. You learn more on the streets of New York,

meeting different people and different cultures. It was a real ethnic

Italian neighborhood. I grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. When you

grow up in New York, its something different. When I go back there --

and I go back there quite often -- its almost like I never left. Your

neighborhood’s changed, of course, but people you grow up with there

are your lifelong friends.

What kind of childhood did you have?

When you’re a kid, everything is happy. I grew up with my parents

and grandparents. And my grandfather used to make wine when I was a

kid, so I used to help him down in the basement -- or in New York,

they call it a cellar. I used to step on the grapes with him. My

grandmother used to cook everyday, so I was infatuated with that.

Every day, I would watch her cook. In Italian families, cooking and

food is the primary thing. It’s their passion for life. I would go to

the store with my grandparents or my mother. I learned a lot about

food just growing up. Being in the restaurant business, I never was

formally trained, but being around my family was my training. I

couldn’t ask for anything better than that. I went to Catholic school

all my life -- grammar school, high school, college. I’m from a

strict Italian family. I got good morals, good family roots -- it’s

stuff you don’t see these days.

How did you end up in Newport-Mesa?

I moved to Las Vegas during my college years, and I stayed in

Vegas for about four years. I was young and I had a lot of fun. I

moved there to play baseball, but I ended up working at a restaurant.

That was over 20 years ago. I had a lot of fun, I was single. Las

Vegas was pretty interesting in those days. Then I moved to Palm

Springs. I was in the restaurant business there. When I was in Palm

Springs, I used to come to the beach down here, Newport Beach, and

said, “Someday I’d like to move down here.” Fortunately, I had an

opportunity to come open up a restaurant and that’s where I’m at now.

Besides New York, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. This area

here -- who could complain? Growing up in New York, I’d never thought

that I’d end up in California.

What are your greatest accomplishments in life?

I find it very hard talking about myself. It’s very awkward

talking about me and things that I’ve done because I’m just an

ordinary guy. I don’t have one great accomplishment. I hit a home run

once to win a baseball game in a New York City high school

tournament. But other than that, I think one of my accomplishments is

creating a restaurant and having people come ... and they enjoy your

food and they enjoy your restaurant. That makes you feel so good that

you’ve done something and built something and have people come in and

thank you. That really gets to me. I feel that’s sort of an

accomplishment.

I do a lot of work with animal rescuing. I like doing stuff with

animals and kids. If I had more time I’d try to get into coaching.

If you could re-do one moment or incident in your life, what would

it be?

It’s a tough question. Growing up, I thought I’d be either a

priest or baseball player. I was an altar boy till I was pretty old.

I waited and waited, and I never got the call from God. I wanted to

be a baseball player of course, like every young boy. I had talent,

but growing up in New York, it’s not like growing up here. It’s hard

growing up in New York if you want to be an athlete. We never had

lights in our fields. The facilities were different than here. You

have to be 100% devoted and I actually wasn’t. You find out later on

that it’s got to be your life. So I probably regret not focusing more

on trying to be a baseball player and going to college play ball, but

I was having too much fun in Vegas to pursue that.

What profession other than yours would you like to have tried?

Well, priest or baseball player. Growing up in New York, I wanted

to be a baseball player. But you have to have talent and you need

desire. I played the accordion for five years when I was growing up

-- you had to do that in an Italian family. But I don’t think that I

wanted to be a musician. I was semicreative in school. I did TV

shows. I was good at writing skits and comedy but I never pursued

that. Maybe working around animals at the zoo.

What are some differences between a typical day in your life now

versus a day in your life 20 years ago?

Besides being older by 20 years, not to much because I was in the

restaurant business 20 years ago but I was younger and I really

didn’t care too much about things like I do now. I find myself being

too serious now. I use to be pretty much carefree like everyone else

when you’re young. Now, I have certain goals that I want to do in the

next few years. When you’re 20 years younger, you just want to live

and enjoy yourself.

What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in your life?

A couple of months ago, I was walking past the other restaurant

down the block. I noticed a woman, she was probably in a group of

five or six people, very pretty, very vibrant. She just happened to

catch my eye. Later, I was sitting outside my restaurant, Ciao, and I

just glance up and I see the woman I’d seen in the restaurant. As she

gets close to me, I see that she is in a wheelchair and she has no

arms or legs. I’d seen her sitting down at the restaurant and she was

so vibrant you couldn’t tell that she had no arms or legs. When I’d

seen her I said, “Wow, this lady here is acting like she is perfectly

normal.” And God gave her this to deal with, she ended up like this

in some accident or something. So that really hit me. How could I

complain about having a bad back or my foot bothering me when this

woman here is enjoying her life. She is just one of those people that

just had a lot of life in her and here she was with no arms or legs.

It really stuck in my mind. It really got to me. So I learned to deal

with what you have. There’s no reason to complain. Life is what it

is. And I am very happy with what God gave me.

What do you treasure most?

That’s another hard question because I have a lot of things that I

enjoy and treasure including going back to New York and spending time

with my family and friends. And I treasure every day of being in

business and just living my life. I treasure my family and friends

that I grew up with, but otherwise I’m very content with living my

life. I’m not a selfish person, so I don’t have too many things that

I want to hold on to. But I just treasure those things right now. I

enjoy spending time with my Siberian husky, Sarge. I’m single and

being in this business, I never got married, so I have a dog that was

put into my life at the right time.

What would you like people to always remember about you?

I never really want to grow up. I still want to be a kid, to hang

out and play sports, to be around kids and animals. I’m still a big

kid, and I never matured as an adult.

What was one of the best of the unexpected things that happened in

your life?

In 1977, I was in Studio 54 -- probably the world’s most famous

nightclub. As I was walking in, I bumped into Mick Jagger. He was

leaving. He was a little drunk or whatever. And it was Bianca

Jagger’s birthday party and I ended up hanging out and having a party

with her. There was Bianca Jagger, Holston, Jacqueline Bisset -- I

don’t want to drop names. It was pretty interesting that night.