Lucca’s Restaurant stirs strong memories

For The Madera Tribune

The first Lucca’s restaurant in Madera.

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An inferno of flames stabbed at the darkness on Monday, Sept. 10, 1973. Lucca’s restaurant was ablaze, and according to retired Fire Chief, Alden Potter, it was the worst fire in town since the Madera Theater burned in 1941.  Losses from the restaurant fire were estimated at $250,000.

Bystanders could hardly believe their eyes. There had been a Lucca’s on the corner of Third and Gateway since 1934, when Giorgio and Aurelia Del Bianco built their restaurant there, but it had its beginning a long time before that. 

One would have to go back to 1902 to find the real genesis of Lucca’s. In that year a lad came to America. His name was Giorgio, and he was only 16 years old. Since his 28-day journey across the Atlantic was punctuated with spasms of seasickness, his first view of Ellis Island brought a mixture of joy and relief. In time the unpleasantness of that voyage would fade, as the young man set out to make his mark in Madera.