Three Des Moines restaurateurs are teaming up this Saturday to honor 96-year-old Pat Civitate, known as the matriarch of the city’s Italian community. Tony Lemmo, George Formaro and Louie Tumea will host “Picnic with Pat,” offering free freshly baked bread to attendees from a historic neighborhood brick oven.
The brick oven, located just south of a mural on Indianola Road, was built years ago by Civitate. It serves as a replica of the ovens once common across Des Moines’ Italian neighborhoods, where women baked fresh bread to sell for pennies and donated the earnings to St. Anthony’s Catholic Church and other charitable causes.
