Anthony J. “Tony” Domino was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, but moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1935, where, despite the fact that the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression, he immediately set about planning a restaurant he would call the Italian Village.
Domino’s modest establishment opened the following year at 5730 O Street. It had just 46 seats and a jukebox, but word quickly spread around Lincoln that its kitchen was turning out some of the best Italian-American food available anywhere in the city.
The Italian Village was soon packed just about every night. In 1941, however, Domino ran into trouble when police raided his restaurant and several other establishments that they suspected of violating local liquor laws. Although Nebraska had repealed Prohibition at the federal level when it ratified the 21st Amendment in 1933, the city of Lincoln still outlawed liquor by the drink. One Sunday morning police officers swooped into the Italian Village and seized some alcoholic beverages as well as well as assorted soft-drink bottles that had allegedly been used to provide the restaurant’s patrons with setups. Arrested and charged with operating a “disorderly house,” Domino pleaded guilty, paid a fine of $15 plus court costs, and went back to business at to his restaurant.
Over the next decade, except for a brief period during World War II when he was in the U.S. army, Domino repeatedly expanded and improved the Italian Village, to the point where, by 1948, the restaurant could accommodate 360 diners. The jukebox was gone, replaced by a state-of-the-art sound system. There was dancing until 1:00 a.m. and nightly performances by Don Tichy on what was said to be $5,000 Hammond organ—simultaneously broadcast live on Lincoln’s KOLN radio station—as well as Jack Wells taking requests from patrons at the restaurant’s new piano bar.
In 1944, after the Lincoln police paid another visit to the Italian Village, the assistant city attorney charged Domino with “maintaining and operating a public dance without having a license to do so; permitting dancing on Sunday on premises leased and controlled by him; and permitting persons to collect and engage in the unlawful drinking of intoxicating liquors in a building leased by him and under his control.” A municipal judge found Domino guilty on all three counts and fined him $45 and costs.
On May 27, 1951, tragedy struck when a devastating fire all but destroyed the Italian Village and claimed the life of Joseph Delphia, the restaurant’s live-in custodian, who was sleeping in the boiler room and succumbed to smoke inhalation. Only the building’s brick walls were left standing.
Domino plowed some $150,000 into rebuilding the Italian Village. The new restaurant, completed in late 1951, could accommodate a total of 500 patrons in its main dining area as well as five private rooms reserved for banquets, receptions, club meetings, and the like. The floor shows were bigger and better, too, featuring such famous entertainers as Peg Leg Bates, a tap dancer with a prosthetic leg who dazzled audiences with his speed, precision, and creativity, and Lowe, Hite, and Stanley, a vaudeville comedy trio that used their radically different physical statures (Hite was promoted as “the tallest man in the world”) to deliver Three-Stooges-style slapstick humor.
In the back of the Italian Village was the “locker room,” where customers could store their alcohol, as it was still a no-on in Lincoln for restaurants to serve liquor by the drink. With a relaxation of the local liquor laws, though, the Italian Village could provide the setups—ice, glasses, and mixers—and leave the rest to its customers.
By this time Tony Domino himself had become a local legend, and his last name, flanked by two dominoes (7 and 11), glowed in neon on the sign above the restaurant’s entrance. He liked to keep his pink Cadillac—also emblazoned with dominoes—parked right in front the restaurant, and inside he worked the dinnertime crowds nonstop, radiating a kind of supper-club glamour and hospitality. On occasion he even went up on the stage to play the drums when certain acts were performing.
Then there was the attention-getting “Cupid in Cigno” (Cupid on Swan) statue that stood in front of the Italian Village. It had been sculpted by Sirio Tonelli, an Italian-born artist whose oil painting of Christ had been featured on the front page of the Omaha World-Herald on Christmas Day, 1953. (The story that Domino won the statue in a craps game in Florence, Italy, was almost certainly apocryphal.)
In 1960, after 24 years at the helm, Domino decided to sell the Italian Village—statue and all—to the Legionnaire Club of Lincoln for an amounted reported to be $185,000. After a remodeling it became home to Lincoln’s 5,600-member American Legion Post 3 (the third largest such post in the nation at the time) and a meeting place for various other veterans organizations.
Tony Domino died in 1966 at age 60. In the years ahead the place that once was the Italian Village would undergo several more transformations, first as a Farabee’s Restaurant, then as the home of Carpenter Motors, and most recently, in a newly constructed building, as a used-car dealership.
Pollo alla Cacciatora (Chicken Cacciatore)
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Loading...Anthony J. "Tony" Domino opened the Italian Village in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1936 and operated the restaurant until its closing in1960. "Our recipes are family recipes handed down from our grandmothers," newspaper ads for the restaurant claimed, though it's doubtful that anyone's nonna was responsible for the "French Fried Potatoes" served with its entrées. This is the Italian Village's recipe for Pollo alla Cacciatora (Chicken Cacciatore), the classic Italian dish known for its hearty and rustic flavors.
Ingredients
- 1 whole 4-pound chicken, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
- 1/2 cup rendered fat or vegetable oil
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/4 cup finely chopped carrot
- 3 sprigs fresh parsley
- 1 bay leaf (or substitute 1 sprig fresh basil)
- 4 cups fresh or canned tomatoes, strained to yield 2 cups pulp
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup Marsala, dry sherry, or dry white wine
Instructions
Pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towels. Combine the flour and 1 teaspoon of the salt in a shallow dish. Lightly dredge each piece in the seasoned flour, shaking off the excess.
Heat the fat or oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the chicken pieces in batches, taking care not to overcrowd the pan, and brown them on all sides until golden, about 8–10 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate and cover to keep warm.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the onion, garlic, carrot, parsley, and bay leaf to the skillet. Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are softened and lightly browned, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the tomato pulp, the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.
Return the browned chicken to the skillet, nestling the pieces into the tomato sauce. Add the wine, reduce the heat to low, and cover the skillet. Let the dish simmer gently for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is tender and the sauce has thickened slightly.
Discard the parsley and bay leaf. Arrange the chicken pieces on a serving platter and spoon the sauce over the top. Serve hot.
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