Joe Iavarone, whose grandfather founded Iavarone Bros. Foods, says he hopes the family’s legacy will always prevail. Celebrating its 90th anniversary, this business has gourmet food retail stores in Wantagh, New Hyde Park, Woodbury, and its oldest, in Maspeth, Queens. Planned for 2018 is the opening of a full service 6,000-square-foot restaurant in Plainview.

Iavarone food business history begins in 1919, when five partners from a town near Naples, Italy, opened a salcicera in East New York, selling old world delicacies like homemade Italian sausages. One of the partners was Pasquale Iavarone, who eventually opened his own Italian sausage store in 1927.