'We're gonna have late Christmas': Glorioso's reopens after fire kept famous deli closed for 3 months

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- For a number of shoppers Wednesday afternoon, Christmas came in January. Glorioso's Italian Market, an east side institution particularly known for its delicacies around the holidays, has reopened after a fire in October forced the business to close.

Co-owner Carmine Presta, whose family bought the business from the Gloriosos in 2024, said it was during the closure he fully realized just how much the store means to the community.

"Once you start reading emails that [said], 'We've had Glorioso's lasagna for 30 years on our table for Christmas, we had the Christmas sausage,' You feel sad," Presta said.

The October 3 fire started in a computer room on the second level. While flames never spread to the store floor below, the smoke damage was immense.

"You couldn't stay in the store more than five minutes without coughing," Presta recalled. "Your eyes were burning from just the smoke, the plastic that burned in our IT room was all plastic, so that was tough."

That smoke damaged required significant renovations, which Presta said took 28 days to complete. From there, the business had to complete a re-licensing process with the city.

Beyond that, every single item in the store's inventory had to get tossed. Re-ordering an entire store's worth of goods also took some time, especially given many of the products are imported from Italy.

That all added up to keep the business closed through December, despite the Prestas' knowledge Christmas time is the busiest for the store.

It was a bummer for shoppers who've come during the holiday season for decades.

"Especially around the holidays, it was difficult," Peter Pavone said. "Because there's so many delicacies that you like, that are special here."

Pavone specified he's come for the premade lasagna pans, the prosciutto and the meat sauce. In fact, he said it's become a tradition to get extra jars of sauce in the winter, then take them south to Florida.

Sofia Gutierrez and her 100-year-old mother, Laura, also could not wait to get back to Glorioso's. Their shopping cart contained several bags of baccala, a salted cod Sofia said Laura has made every year for Christmas.

In Spanish, Laura rattled off the recipe featuring potatoes, onions, garlic, tomato sauce and yellow peppers.  Sofia translated how Laura has come for the cod often since moving to Milwaukee's east side from Mexico in 1961.

"It was our first Christmas without it," Sofia said. "It's like not having turkey for Thanksgiving."

The Glorioso family has remained informally involved with the business. Michael Glorioso, the son of co-founder Teddy and former general manager, stopped in during renovations to offer help as needed.

He was among those at the store during Wednesday's reopening. He noted his own family had to forgo come culinary traditions over Christmas but added he was most happy for the longtime shoppers who could now make up for lost time.

"It's awesome. I see the smiles on people's faces, and I see their baskets filling up," Glorioso said. "They recognize me from the years I was here and they come up and thank us, and we're like, 'No, thank you.'"

Presta estimates the total costs, between lost sales, renovations, new equipment and restocked inventory, are in the millions.

Still, he said the ordeal won't disrupt the family's long-term plans of expanding the Glorioso's brand. Presta said he's looking at two sites for additional Glorioso's locations.

He said both sites are in Wisconsin but added he wasn't ready to disclose those locations.

In the short-term, the store is planning to hold a reopening celebration in the coming weeks, complete with a ribbon cutting. It will tie into the store's upcoming 80th anniversary on Valentine's Day.