Sbarro celebrates 50th, recalls how Hip-Hop nearly destroyed its brand

Jul 24, 2006

Sbarro celebrates 50th, recalls how Hip-Hop nearly destroyed its brand · by Rafi Kam

This year Sbarro celebrates its 50th anniversary of bringing “Fresh Italian Cooking” to the world. The Sbarro family opened their first of many Salumerias (Italian grocery stores) in Brooklyn in 1956. Nine years later the Sbarros opened their first mall-based restaurant at Brooklyn’s Kings Plaza and the rest is la historia! Today, Sbarro, Inc. runs close to a thousand restaurants worldwide but they haven’t forgotten their family roots.

“From the old deli in Brooklyn to a $600 million operation,” Dominic Sbarro gesticulates with pride. “Lets put it like this: we never had a problem from people not liking the food or something like that.”

Nunzio, who is Dominic’s senior by four years, chimes in: “If anything we may have had a problem with some people – they like the food too much!”

“Hey Nunzio! What a you talking? We never have no problem with people like the food too much!”

Nunzio sighs and faces us, “My brother Dominic, he’s young and proud. It’s hard for him to remember when things were different. The hard times we faced in the 80s and the struggles Papa Sbarro faced at that time. My brother either doesn’t remember or he doesn’t want to remember.”

It was in 1985 that Sbarro permitted the producers of the movie Krush Groove to shoot at one of their fine family restaurants. Nunzio gets choked up as he recounts the tale, “little did Papa know of these three balenas they were going to be sending in!”

The infamous Fat Boys scene at Sbarro’s took three days to shoot and nearly caused financial ruin for the fast food chain.

“Papa was thinking he’d get a little publicity to help with sales. Then they bring in these Fat Boys. These Fat Boys, they ate everything! Everything!!”

Even after Krush Groove was released the rotund rap group were prone to terrorizing local Sbarro’s for the tremendous deal at the all-you-can-eat buffets. Nunzio tells us that as a child every time he heard the trio enter a Sbarro’s singing their famous hook “The Fat Boys Are Back!” he would run sobbing to his nonna because he knew the chaos that was about to ensue.

With Sbarro’s on the edge of ruin, the Fat Boys finally broke up and started dining separately. Still the individual Fat Boys could be a problem for some local franchise owners. A restaurant manager who asked to remain nameless commented “Rest in Peace to Buffy and all that s**t but honestly, it was either him or us.”

Meanwhile, Sbarro’s hopes that their long history of contributions to Hip-Hop culture will be recognized perhaps by the Hip-Hop Museum. Aside from Krush Groove memorabilia, Sbarro’s is also contributing to the museum’s collection the orange tray shared by Slick Rick and a well known light-skinned virgin.

Comments for "Sbarro celebrates 50th, recalls how Hip-Hop nearly destroyed its brand"

classic, cold-hearted buffy quote

— sankofa Jul 24, 11:18 AM
Almost perfect comedy, but there should have been a reference to the song “All You Can Eat” in there somewhere.

— DJ Flash Jul 24, 04:42 PM
rafi where do you get this?

— Arjun Jul 25, 05:54 AM
Arjun,

It’s simple – I don’t.

Not always anyway. How the Fat Boys nearly ruined Sbarro’s was agent b’s idea. There’s also an old joke from our missing writer/editor R.H.S. in there.

All I do is steal ideas, flesh them out and take the credit!

— Rafi Jul 25, 08:52 AM
^^^baller status

— Arjun Jul 25, 07:20 PM