Sunlight streams in through the broad front windows of Bosco’s Italian Restaurant on a clear September day. The red and white checkered tablecloths of the dinner room are awash in late morning light. A faded color photo of Susan Bosco hugging her mom Nada, with a handwritten sticky note reading “In the beginning.” taped to its wooden frame, hangs by the entrance.

The restaurant is empty, calm and bright — the opposing version of the candlelit, boisterous environs of the same room during dinner service. Bosco’s, like all restaurants, goes through a daily energy and ambience metamorphosis between opening and closing, but unlike many places, one woman has personally overseen her operation for half a century. That is Susan Bosco.