Lucca Ravioli Delays Closure Until the End of the Month

Lucca Ravioli Co. is giving its many bereaved fans 10 precious extra days to shop for homemade ravioli and imported Italian goods. This spring, the 1100 Valencia Street shop announced it would close on April 20, but now employees says they’ll keep the lights on until Tuesday, April 30 at 6 p.m. No running, no diving in the deli.

The family behind Lucca opened their business in 1925, but without a clear path of succession to run it, current owner Michael Feno opted to sell his family’s building, occupied by the business, and to close Lucca along with it. The listing price was $1,450,000 and the sale is pending.

News of the closure prompted a rush on Lucca’s supplies like tagliarini and ravioli, pastas made by employees wearing white Lucca paper hats in a back room visible from the street. Customers’ attachment to Lucca is so strong that they’ve even been buying those paper hats, and bidding on the hastily hand-painted signs that advertise Lucca’s products in the window.

“We’re so busy and overloaded,” a Lucca employee, who declined to give his name, said by phone. Owners have categorically declined requests for comment from the press.

Amid the rush ahead of the April 30 closing, the company is only able to generate a third of all their usual products. “We just can’t make any more [than we are],” said the employee, who signed off to go make pasta. He’s available for comment sometime next month, or next year, when he’ll be “relaxing.”

• Lucca Ravioli Co., an Italian-American Institution, Is Closing on Valencia Street [ESF]
• Lucca Ravioli Is Selling Signs to Die-hard Fans Before It Closes [ESF]