It was just around the time Italian food was starting to gain popularity in the United States after World War II when Michael Angelo “Mickey” Mance decided to head to the beach and start serving pizza, spaghetti and sandwiches to the surfers and residents of Hermosa Beach.
Obviously the locals loved it as Mickey’s Italian Deli & Pizzeria is celebrating seven decades in business this month.
“This community made us,” said 65-year-old Paul Mance, the current deli owner and son of Mickey Mance, who opened the business at 101 Hermosa Avenue in 1953. “We are here to feed people … and we wouldn’t be who we are without them.”
Paul, along with his son Mickey Mance — who is named after his grandfather and helps run the business — will be celebrating the milestone anniversary from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, April 8 with raffles that include prizes like a free pizza per week for an entire year and a free sandwich once a week for a year. One lucky person will even win a new TV and others will get meal deals as the deli rolls back the price of their famous sauce sandwich and the Mickey’s Combo to just .70 cents.
“I think this is a place where people can just come and feel like family,” said 33-year-old Mickey, who started working at the deli as a teen before heading off to college and returning about six years ago to help run the place.
The senior Mance was just 22-years-old when he decided to open the joint, during a time when Italian cuisine wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today.
“At that time nobody really knew what pizza or lasagna, meatballs, spaghetti was,” Paul said. “It was very uncommon in the ’50s. If you were Italian, you knew that, but as a whole, not a lot of people knew.”
Some of Paul’s earliest memories include his dad, uncles and grandfather all hanging at the deli, cooking and just being part of the neighborhood.
“It was really cool,” he said. “Mickey’s has always been known as a place of community….
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