Maria Susi, matriarch of The Berwick restaurant, remembered for 'building joy'

Bob Moraine remembers an afternoon two years ago when holiday trays he ordered from The Berwick weren't quite ready when he got there to pick them up.

As he waited, he said, Maria Susi came out to apologize and offered him a bite to eat. "How about a meatball?" she asked. Declining was futile, he soon discovered. She brought him not one meatball, but three, along with a basket of bread.

Moraine told Susi how much he had enjoyed her spaghetti and meatballs at all the wedding receptions he had attended at The Berwick over the years.

"Maria walked away, and before I finished that first meatball, she was back with a full plate of spaghetti," he said. "I chuckled about my good fortune in showing up early to pick up my order. I joked that I might as well have a glass of wine!"

Moraine was among dozens of loyal customers of The Berwick who shared memories of Susi after her family announced that their 93-year-old matriarch had died on Oct. 28. Maria Susi founded the Italian restaurant — now on the Southeast Side — with her husband in 1955. and ran it for decades after his death in 1984.

'The true immigrant story'

"She is the true immigrant story," said daughter Luciana Ramsey, part of the second of three generations who've run The Berwick. "What she built with my dad ... the business became part of so many family celebrations."

Susi was born in 1930 in Introdaqua, an ancient town in the Italian region of Abbruzzo. She and her family were forced to forage for food during World War II, she told The Dispatch for a 2015 profile. They emigrated to the United States in 1952 and settled in the Bronx. She marveled at American grocery stores, where food was plentiful and you could buy as much as you wanted.

More: Matriarch of Berwick Manor makes presence felt daily in 60th year of establishment

Her husband, Tony Susi, was an Air Force chef from Columbus when they first met in New York. They married, moved to Columbus and opened The Berwick Seafood Manor in 1955. Tony worked in the kitchen and Maria worked in the front of the house. They were open from 11 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.

A move to Refugee Road on the Southeast Side and a few name changes later — to Berwick Manor to the Berwick Party House, to, simply, The Berwick — their business became a Columbus institution and frequent host for weddings, baptisms and other milestone events. And just as their own children and grandchildren have come in, so have their customers.

'She just believed in building joy'

"People will say, 'You did my grandmother's wedding,' 'you did my baptism, and now I'm getting married,'" Ramsey said. "In the marketing world they call it 'customer lifetime value.' My mother didn't know that term. She just believed in building joy."

Maria Susi believed in good food, too.

In September 2015, when Susi was 85, then-Dispatch Food Editor Lisa Abraham joined her at The Berwick as she made some of her customers' favorites:

Working quickly, with only her cleanly scrubbed hands as utensils, Susi fit a wide sheet of fresh, house-made pasta into a pan; ladled tomato sauce on top; then crumbled fresh ricotta cheese over the sauce.

Next came a layer of seasoned, cooked ground beef; a generous sprinkling of freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese; and a few handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese. Her granddaughters watched her closely and teased her to “get it in the corners,” echoing the cooking advice she always preached to them when making lasagna.

... Susi deftly folded over the flap of fresh pasta, fit a second of the giant noodles into her pan and began working on another layer. She later rolled meatballs two at a time.

Ramsey said of her mother's approach to food and the restaurant: "It was about passion and pride."

rvitale@dispatch.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Maria Susi, owner of Columbus restaurant The Berwick, dies at 93