Feb 1, 2019 4 min read

For the past eight decades, Italian cuisine in Washington County and Angelo’s have pretty much gone hand in hand. It started out as a bar on West Chestnut Street back in 1939, and it’s grown and evolved since then – but there’s still an emphasis on old-fashioned Italian dishes, like the spaghetti and meatballs that put the establishment on the map to begin with. I don’t remember how old I was the first time I ate at Angelo’s, but I know that I was with my parents and grandparents and that it was at the original location, and delicious. It might have rivaled my grandma’s spaghetti sauce.

When third-generation owner Michael Passalacqua moved the restaurant to its current location, near Washington Wild Things Park, it was certainly exciting. A new location meant that the restaurant was doing well, that it would be larger and accommodate more people – and that we still got to enjoy Passalacqua namesake dishes like Pasta Silvio, Pasta-Lacqua and Pasta Patricia. Since Angelo’s is celebrating its 80th anniversary this March, it seemed fitting to feature them on the cover of this issue. Michael is so much more than a restaurateur. He’s given so much back to the community by way of spaghetti dinners and charity that Angelo’s was honored with the Charles C. Keller Excellence Award for Corporate Philanthropy at last fall’s Washington County Community Foundation annual Philanthropy Banquet. When he accepted the award, he began crying. And so did everyone else.

Observer-Reporter executive editor Liz Rogers wrote the piece on page 16, and Michael was gracious enough to take time out of his already busy schedule at the busiest time of year to do the interview – right before Christmas. When we circled back after the holiday for the photos, he was ever-so-accommodating, inviting us into the kitchen to get action shots of his team of chefs who were fairly busy despite it only being a little after 4 p.m. on a weekday.

We’re looking forward to seeing what the future brings for Angelo’s. Perhaps 20 years from now, we will be doing a story on the restaurant’s centennial celebration!

It’s the people and the businesses that make Washington County great, and Amy Ross of Ross Fiber Mercantile is another person making an impact. She raises rare and heritage sheep on her family’s Eighty Four farm, and sells yarn made from their wool at her Main Street store. A true local partnership, she pays her rent to landlord Mark Kennison in eggs from the farm – which he in turn uses at his neighboring Presidents Pub. Her work permeates well beyond Main Street and Washington County, though. She’s collaborating with various organizations, including the Smithsonian & SVF Biodiversity Preservation Project to ensure that endangered breeds of livestock, like her sheep, don’t die out. You can read more about her awesome work in staff writer Karen Mansfield’s story on page 24.

Our staff writer Katie Anderson loves winter and is one of the few people I know who gets excited for snow. She doesn’t see it as a bitter nuisance like most of us, and hailing from Buffalo, N.Y., it’s no wonder. In Anderson’s Beyond the Border feature on page 30, fellow Buffalo native Lisa Florczak shares her mantra: “It’s time to stop enduring the winter – it’s time to start embracing it.” Now, that may be easier said than done, but with a winter outdoor recreation scene that rivals what most cities do recreationally in the summer, I have a better understanding of Anderson’s excitement for the season. Sort of.

Truth be told, I’m excited to wrap this issue and get to work on the next one – because it publishes in April, and by then, these dark cold days will be behind us.

Until then,