Breast of Chicken à la Marsala

Piety Corner Gardens

260 Lexington Street
Waltham, Massachusetts

1954 – 1974

In 1948 Stephen Santamaria and his brother-in-law, Joseph Rando, opened a grocery store at 260 Lexington Street in Waltham, Massachusetts, right in the middle of the Piety Corner Historic District. After operating the grocery for a few years, however, they came up with a better—and bigger—idea: a restaurant and bar that would dwarf other such establishments in the city. So in 1954 they converted the one-story frame and concrete building that housed their grocery, Piety Corner Gardens, into a 140-seat restaurant with the same name.

Business was good enough that in early 1960 Santamaria and Rando enlarged their restaurant by opening a new wing. But four months later a two-alarm fire swept through the entire establishment (two dining rooms, a lounge, and a bar), causing some $150,000 in damage. The tragedy was compounded when, later that year, Rando died suddenly.

Santamaria, with the help of other family members, kept Piety Corner Gardens going strong through the 1960s. The restaurant could seat about 400 in the main dining room plus another 630 in its small private Ebony Cocktail Lounge and two large banquet rooms. “Mr. Steve Santamaria, your congenial host, has spared no effort to bring you a most delightful evening of dancing and dining,” a menu from the era said. “Here, under one roof, are the facilities for which you’ve been looking: superb cuisine, courteous waitresses, fast service, delightful atmosphere, and most important, sufficient space for your clubs, banquets, or functions.” The restaurant’s parking area, the menu went on to note, could “easily accommodate six hundred cars.”

Piety Corner Gardens featured plenty of Italian specialties, including pizzas of nearly every variety and pasta with more than a dozen different sauces, along with steaks and chops, chicken, and seafood. If you could think of something you wanted to eat, whether a hamburger, a jumbo filet mignon, or a paidr of stuffed lobsters, chances are you could find it on the menu.

In those days Piety Corner Gardens was also known as something of a jazz venue. Mamie Lee, a Boston singer who’d just formed her own jazz trio, the Swingmen, with pianist Carlton Schroeder, drummer Peter Donald, and bassist Phil Morrison, headlined there in 1966. (Lee is best known for her 1967 hit song, “I Can Feel Him Slipping Away,” for MGM Records.

In 1969 Santamaria was struck with tragedy again when his 24-year-old son, who’d worked in the restaurant since he was a teenager, died of injuries he sustained in an automobile accident.

Santamaria closed Piety Corner Gardens in 1974, and the Chesterbook Restaurant soon opened in the same space. But the Chesterbook never hit its stride, and the property went on the auction block in 1978 and again in 1980. Today a self-storage business occupies the site. Santamaria died in 2008 at age 90.