Stockton's Miracle Mile

The Red Top is an early 1970’s postcard. Manny's California Fresh Cafe acquired the restaurant in the mid 1970’s and did extensive remodeling Foster's Freeze - Probably not the exact Foster's Freeze

Amaren Cafe & Hookah Bar Website / Former Gump's Gifts / Dee Ann Bridal Clothes

1825 Pacific Ave # 5 - Former Gusty’s House of Wings - Noticing the popularity of the small, but flavorful wing, Gustavo Sandigo opened Gusty's House of Wings. Sandigo and his wife, Brenda, run the restaurant. Sandigo works at Gusty's six days a week, doing everything from preparing food to clearing tables. Before opening his own eatery in December 2009, Sandigo managed Black Angus for three-and-a-half years and El Torito for 13 years before that. The restaurant industry has been his life, though he's happy to work for himself. He feels lucky to be able to emphasize quality, something he doesn't feel would happen if ran a chain or franchise. Now, he can focus on the important thing: The chicken. / Former Cibo di Vino 1825 Pacific Avenue -

1825 Pacific Ave - Empresso Coffeehouse - Established in 2005, the original and current location of Empresso Coffeehouse has established itself as an icon. Located in the landmark Empire Theater on the Miracle Mile visitors to the area are immediately drawn to the classic marquee and neon lights that hold true to the original styling.

1825 Pacific Ave - Former Stockton Empire Theatre

Back in 1945 the theatre was simply called “The Stockton”. It was the seventh theatre to carry the city’s name. Constructed at a cost of $150.000, it was the first theatre built away from thriving Downtown and quickly drew masses - turning it into an icon of Pacific Avenue’s “Miracle Mile”. Feb 6, 1945 marked the Opening Night of The Stockton with a Hollywood premiere - sneak preview. In the mid 1970’s the theatre was expanded into a four-plex. Three modern cinemas were added to compliment the 1000-seat grand cinema. It then became 'The Stockton Royal'. -
Through the next thirty years, the theatre changed hands several times, and while successive owners attempted to breathe new life into the complex, the Royal ultimately, gave way to the emergence of the megaplex, and ironically closed as a result of Downtown's City Center Cinemas' long anticipated opening. Under new ownership in 2005, a major updating  brought new life to the renamed Stockton Empire Theatre. The Stockton Empire Theatre last houseed not only film screenings, but live performing arts as well. The Empire Theatre had been showcasing local theatrical companies and various stage performers. Additionally The Empire continued to make its auditorium available for independent and classic film screenings, art showings, jazz performances, musicals, dance, opera, ballet, lectures, banquets; and additionally serve as a studio for local independent film makers.

Stockton Empire Theatre Website 1827 Pacific Ave - Former Harvey Amusement

231 Bedford Road - Peace and Justice Network of SJC
- A local grassroots educational non-profit, based in Stockton, in the Central Valley of California. They have been working on issues of peace, justice, and a healthy environment for over 20 years. To that end the group publishes a newspaper, Connections, hosts two cable television shows; Talking It Through and The Reality Show, sponsors the local Earth Day, the Peaceful Holiday Fair, and other events. In September '05 they opened our new Peace Center which is giving them a much more visible and active presence in the community. They also encourage people to educate themselves with a variety of points of view and news beyond the mainstream.

Peace and Justice Network of SJC Website

1950's - Pacific & Bedford,
2006 Pacific - Pacific Liquors (1955), 2018 Pacific - Lucchesi's Delicatessen (1957)  / Holiday Shop (1957, 2024 Pacific - Former Avenue Hardware (1955), 2041 Pacific - Costanza's Cafe, 2047 Pacific - Borelli Jewelers (1955), 2049 Pacific - R Dee Shoppe, 2105 Pacific - Former Ernie Reed Clothiers, 2111 Pacific - K&M Town & Country">

As she makes her gradual move from her Venetian Bridges home of more than 40 years into a one-bedroom independent living apartment at O'Connor Woods, Frances Costanza DeMartini is gradually sorting through belongings and papers, deciding what stays and what goes.

Her hallway and bedroom walls speak volumes about the 94-year-old woman. They're lined with collages she made of photographs of family and friends.

"I don't keep my photos in books," she said.

No, she keeps them out to remember the past, to trigger stories of "the restaurant."

That would be Costanza's, or The Pioneer, restaurants owned by her late husband, Salvador Costanza, his father, brothers and uncles.

She's the last of her generation with a link to the family restaurant that started in downtown Stockton in the 1920s as Tortola Tamale Cafe. The unique thing about the restaurants, by any name, is they served Italian food but were famous for their tamales.

Bing Crosby discovered them while filming "High Time" in Stockton in 1960 and often ate at The Pioneer. After the move wrapped, he'd stop back on his way through the area or send for shipments of them.

"They're a little different from the Mexican tamale," DeMartini said. "They're bigger, round with different packing and seasoning."

That's because the recipe — which is made of chili and uses beef or chicken — came from Argentina, where a man named Frank DiGardi, who'd left Sicily in the late 1800s, first set foot in the Americas.

Quotas being what they were, DeMartini said, DiGardi wasn't able to come to America from Sicily, but he could come from Argentina. He apparently was in South America long enough to pick up some recipes and when he arrived in San Francisco, he started a thriving business. He encouraged family from the old country to come to San Francisco.

DeMartini's family did. At least her mother's side, the Trentacostes, did. Her father's family, the Maitas, from the same village — Cefala Diana — settled in Chicago before making its way to the West Coast. By then, DeMartini's grandparents were settled in the restaurant business.

DeMartini's father soon joined the business, too. He was a partner in a Tortola Tamale Café in Sacramento, where she was born on Nov. 9, 1923, and lived until she was in high school. Her father's business venture hit a dark patch, and his in-laws invited him to work in their Oakland restaurant, Golden West, which also had a wholesale tamale operation.

It was in Oakland that Frances met Salvador Costanza, also a distant relative of Frank DiGardi. The Costanzas had settled in Stockton and Sal's dad, John, with his brothers, Joe and Pasquale, opened Tortola Tamale Café in the 1920s, then renamed it The Pioneer when a DiGardi descendant trademarked the name and forced others to refrain from using Tortola.

The three Costanza brothers settled on The Pioneer and the restaurant, located where The Deliberation Room now sits, was known for its tamales and the paintings of early California done by Italian artist Angelo Lanzini.

"My father-in-law realized when his sons, who were all in the service, when the war was over, would need to work and there wasn't that much business in the restaurant to support all of our families," DeMartini said. "My father-in-law went to (125 N.) Sutter Street and opened a restaurant for his sons to have something to come home to. He couldn't use the Tortola name, so he used the Costanza name."

By then, DeMartini was a Costanza, having married Salvador in 1946 and moved to Stockton.

Frances, who at 94 retains the beauty of the young woman who posed for fashion photographers, settled into a new life, giddy to be with her new husband.

"Stockton was quaint," she said of her early impression.

Within a year she gave birth to Vicki, the first of two daughters. Before Sally was born in 1952, Costanza's had moved to the Miracle Mile on Pacific Avenue.

"When we got married, my husband didn't want me working," DeMartini said. "All the kids in his family worked in the restaurant. After school they'd all go to work. He said, 'I want a home life for my kids.' So, I didn't work."

That is until her children — Sally was born in 1952 — were grown, going to school and involved in activities.

"I never liked the pies they served at Costanza's," she said.

So, the woman who'd learned to cook from her mother and "made a mean ravioli," offered to bake the restaurant's pies. She made a dozen a day, twice as many if a big crowd was in town.

She was happy. She was baking, something she still loves to do, and was a direct part of the family business.

The joy was brief. Not long after she started, a week after her in-laws John and Rose Costanza celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, her beloved Salvador dropped dead at home. He was 46.

She briefly continued making the pies for her brother-in-law, but friends asked her to run a clothing/gift shop called Cargo's. That business didn't last long.

Ten years after losing Salvador, and two years after Don DeMartini, the service manager of Chase Chevrolet, lost his wife, Frances' good friend Jeanne, Frances married Don DeMartini.

Don DeMartini died in 2006. Frances lost Sally to cancer two years ago, at 63, and Vicki, at 70, in March.

Her grandsons, Anthony and Vince Corradi, remain.

Frances DeMartini was hospitalized twice in November with a slight bout of pneumonia and went to O'Connor Wood's skilled nursing facility to recover. It was while she was there she decided to make O'Connor Woods a permanent residence.

"I don't want to burden my grandsons," she said.

Anthony Corradi dotes on his grandmother, though, and has learned much of the family history from her.

Born in 1987, Corradi remembers the Pacific Avenue Costanza's. He'd ask his mom to take him and she'd say, "It used to be our family's, but we're not connected anymore."

Salvador's brother Frank had sold it to a partner before Corradi was born. All that remained was the name. Eventually, the restaurant closed. The building now houses a Korean restaurant.

The memories are clear to Frances, though, of the restaurants, both here and in the Bay Area. It's been a good life, she said, built, perhaps improbably, on a Sicilian ancestor's stop in Argentina.

Contact reporter Lori Gilbert at (209) 546-8284 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @lorigrecord.