A couple walks through a gate beside Lovera's Handcrafted Foods and sets their sandwiches on a picnic table in the courtyard. They eat and talk with each other in the courtyard with an outdoor brick oven and vines overhead behind the century-old building that houses the Italian style market that's been internationally awarded for its specialty chee...

Pinocchio’s Italian Restaurant is reopening on Campus Corner in late 2022 after being closed since 2001. The restaurant originally opened in 1972 in Stubbeman Village by Glen Woods, serving breadsticks, pizza, spaghetti and salads. Woods closed the restaurant in 2001 when he realized he wanted to pursue a teaching career in music. He graduated from...

Plans are to bring the Italian Festival back to McAlester this year for its 50th anniversary celebration. "We're going to have it," said Bobby Lenardo, who is co-chairman of the Italian Festival Committee, along with Luke Whitfield. "This is our 50th anniversary," Lenardo said. "We're planning one of our biggest festivals. We're going to have a lot...

Pietro “Pete” Piegari came through the gates of Ellis Island in 1903 with his family after traveling across the Atlantic from San Gregorio Magno, Italy. They settled in Krebs Oklahoma, a coal-mining community at the time. After a coal-mining accident at the age of 21, Pete took an interest in growing beer and perfected his own brand called choc® be...

World-renowned Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli announced new US tour dates, including a stop in Oklahoma City. Bocelli’s performance in Oklahoma City marks his first performance ever in the Sooner State and he will be joined by the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Bocelli will perform at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on June 23, 2022. Tickets for the...

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Cirque Italia is set to feature performances at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center in Shawnee. With a theme hinting of soda fountains, poodle skirts, greased hair and Elvis Presley, Cirque Italia’s Gold Unit performers will present a show centered around the 1950s era. Cirque Italia is enforcing all COVID-19 safe...

If you’ve been by Woodland Hills Mall, you may have noticed there’s a circus in town. It includes trapeze artists, acrobatics and contortion all performed around a unique stage. Cirque Italia travels across the country with performers from all over the world. The entire show happens on a stage filled with 35,000 gallons of water. Water rains down f...

I try to touch all the bases when it comes to various heritage months or holidays and their ties to Oklahoma State wrestling. One I’ve yet to hit is October’s Italian-American Heritage Month. Folks up in New Jersey would probably try and make the claim that Rutgers would grab the title of wrestling’s Italian program. But when you dig into the legac...

Joe Castiglione and Chris Del Conte chat often. Once or twice a week. Sometimes business, sometimes not. Either way, they end every phone call with the same farewell. “I love you.” Hundreds of thousands of OU and Texas fans just got nauseated. Bad enough that they swore allegiance in defecting together from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference...

The Roman gladiators in chariots that greeted guests as they walked into the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club for the recent Renaissance Ball let people know that they were being transported in spirit back to ancient Rome for a fun evening of dancing, food, wine and more. The 45th annual Renaissance Ball, benefiting the Oklahoma City Museum of A...