When I first took over, every phone call I'd receive would say, ‘I’m looking for the owner, is he there?’ They would always act so surprised that there was a woman in charge in the meat business,” recalls Diana Payne, owner of Canino's Sausage Company.

Known to many as the Sausage Queen of Denver, Payne has been the sole owner of Canino’s since 1989, but the business goes back much further than that. Joseph and Lena Canino started selling sausages at the corner of West 35th Avenue and Navajo Street in the 1920s after Joseph bought the apartment building and attached storefront for $3,500.