Michelina 'Mamma' Lombardi, matriarch of Long Island restaurant group, dies at 92

Michelina Lombardi, the eponymous matriarch of the Mamma Lombardi’s restaurant group, died Thursday of natural causes at 92. She died in the same Ronkonkoma home that she had lived in since 1968, when her family emigrated from Forino, a town about 30 miles east of Naples.

The Lombardi hospitality empire comprises restaurants, event venues and specialty markets all over Suffolk County.

Lauren Lombardi, who runs Lombardi’s Love Lane Market in Mattituck, said her grandmother was involved with the business until the pandemic. "She was always a part of the kitchen in Holbrook, coming in every day to peel garlic, make mozzarella."

Lauren’s father, Guy, was the eldest of the eight Lombardi children. He was 16 when the family arrived on Long Island; he is now president of the company. In 2015, he told Newsday, "We all went out and started finding jobs. I was working in a pork store as a butcher; my brother John was making pizzas." A few years later, "at the family table on Sunday, we decided, why not get together to start a pizzeria . . . We had $900 in 1975 and needed $13,000."

The family managed to borrow the rest of the money and, in 1976 they opened a small pizzeria, Mamma Lombardi’s, at 380 Furrows Rd. in Holbrook. In 1983, Newsday restaurant critic Mike McGrady exulted in his discovery of what he deemed "a favorite suburban fantasy. Walking up to the pizza joint, you notice a small dining room beyond the take-out counter. You sit down, and just a few minutes later, young men in tuxedos are bringing you some of the best, down-home Neapolitan cooking this side of Naples."

McGrady noted that "the restaurant was completely filled by late afternoon" and that by 6 p.m., "there were dozens of other customers lining up outside."

Within a few years, the Lombardis moved into larger quarters at 400 Furrows Rd. That property grew to encompass the catering facility Villa Lombardi’s (1994) and Lombardi’s Gourmet Market (2000). Lombardi’s on the Sound opened in Port Jefferson in 2003 (and was sold in 2018), followed by Lombardi’s on the Bay in Patchogue (2011) and Lombardi’s Love Lane Market (2014).

While Mamma Lombardi has become synonymous with huge portions of Italian American food — "it's the capital of red sauce," Lauren said — this cuisine was foreign to Michelina when she arrived on Long Island. In a 2007 interview, she told Newsday, "When I was about 12, my mother started teaching me everything about Italian cooking. It is very basic: You have good olive oil, lots of garlic, fresh basil, oregano, lots of vegetables. We ate traditional dishes that working families would eat, pasta and beans every day; meat was not a staple ingredient because it was too expensive."

Lauren remembered that her grandmother’s home cooking was largely driven by what she grew in her garden. "I remember her escarole and beans, I remember peeling the beans!"

Those beans, Michelina told Newsday, were grown from seeds she brought from Italy. She also boasted of her "eggplants, peppers, basil . . . arugula, parsley. I’m constantly moving things around, rotating what I grow to keep the garden healthy."

Michelina’s husband, Filippo Lombardi, died in 2013. She is survived by her eight children: Guy, Jerry, John and Michelle Lombardi (who all work at the company), Josephine and Filomena Lombardi, Albina Lombardi-Rauchut and Angela Cornia. The funeral was held July 29 at Moloney's Lake Funeral Home & Cremation Center in Lake Ronkonkoma. Donations can be made to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.