Italian-born Joe Petrelli worked in the Property Department at M.G.M. Studios. He opened his first restaurant in 1931 as Joe Petrelli’s Airport Café. The reference to the airport was Pete Leaman’s Culver City Airport, which was located across the street on the former site of The Frontier Shop, Mayfair Market, an ice skating rink, and the Jefferson Bowl which many still remember.
Joe Petrelli’s initial restaurant, was a small box-like structure that Joe “slid” across the street in the middle of the night to the side of Sepulveda where Shakey’s stands today (“Kite Site”). George Petrelli, Joe’s nephew, was also from Bari, Italy. Joe passed on in 1958 in a tragic car accident as the founder was turning into his restaurant parking lot. Many of our mothers were also proud to buy meat at the little butcher shop behind the restaurant.
George Petrelli, who was trained by the restaurant founder, his uncle Joe Petrelli, specialized in the meat department for more than 50 years. With the advent of redevelopment in Culver City, the city had another vision for the block where the steak house operated.
This necessitated the Petrelli’s move to its current location in the interest of redevelopment. George, with the help and devotion of his wife Sophie and daughter, Marie, continued the family tradition.
Although George Petrelli passed away in 2014, the family legacy continues as they celebrate Geo Petrelli’s Steakhouse, a family tradition, this Sunday.
Julie Lugo Cerra has been the Council-appointed City Historian for Culver City since 1996. She has written six books, the most recent being a coffee-table book, “Culver City, the First Hundred Years” published by the Culver City Chamber of Commerce.