December 31, 2017

Downtown LA Food & Drink Diary: Maestro Sausage Company

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vernon’s Maestro Sausage Company.

We’d love to learn the story behind Maestro Sausage Company.
For an Italian family-business to have survived since the 1920’s despite the egos, opinions, and big-mouths, is nothing short of a miracle in my book. But while most of us native Angelenos can rarely name anyone whose family has lived in Los Angeles for 4 generations, we’re proud to say that our family has been making sausage here for 90 years, with no end in sight.

The story of our business begins as an immigrant story when, in 1912, my great-grandfather and our company founder, Domenico Pontrelli (“The Maestro”), left his family in Italy to come to America at the mature age of 17. After almost a decade and a half of working odd jobs including building railroads, promoting boxing events, and whatever else he could do to make a buck, he finally saved up enough cash to open Eastside Market in downtown Los Angeles, and to bring his family over from Italy. The Eastside Market is where he first began manufacturing and selling Italian sausages, and, soon enough, the sausages became the specialty of the house. They were quite popular among everyone in the neighborhood, and even the local restaurants wanted to serve the sausages on their menus.

If the Eastside Market name sounds familiar, it’s because it still exists today; right next to the 110 freeway near Downtown and Chinatown. It’s an LA institution and it’s still as busy as ever. If you go around lunch time, don’t be surprised if there’s a dozen or more fire-fighters and cops waiting in line alongside you.

My grandpa, Sam Pontrelli, and his brother-in-law, George Laricchia, took over the business in the 50s and started making the sausage business more wholesale-friendly to cater to more and more interested restaurant customers. They began calling the sausages “Maestro brand” after my great-grandfather who would often pretend that he was a music conductor while donning a comically large bow-tie and a fake red nose that somehow fit over his already enormous schnoz (big noses are in the Pontrelli bloodline…). He was a loved character and the heart of the company, so it was only fitting to name the sausages after him. You can see the “Maestro” in action in an old video on our website.

In the 70s, the company moved out of Eastside Market, passing the torch onto the Anguili’s who have owned and operated it in the same location ever since, and opened a dedicated sausage factory in Silverlake to keep up with the restaurants’ demand.

My dad and my uncle took over the business in the 80s, and thank God they did, because they were probably the first people in either the Pontrelli or Laricchia families with any kind of real business sense. Up until then you could survive in the marketplace on just bravado and a good product alone, but when big nation-wide food businesses came into the picture, the industry became more complicated. My dad and my uncle brought our company into the 21st century while creating our highest quality standards yet, and they developed most of our newer lines of specialty sausages that are now some of our most popular items like our Chorizo, Andouille, Bangers, and Linguicas. This place would’ve closed up a long time ago without them.

As for me, I’ve been working full-time at the family business now for over 5 years, after working here off and on my whole life, minus a stint in public accounting (i.e. the real meat grinder). Surprisingly, my auditing work from my CPA days has helped a lot, especially in regards to making sure our food safety and quality processes and procedures are on-point. And I’ve always been a major foodie and a fat-kid at heart so jumping right into sales–talking about how to cook sausage all day–was natural. Learning to navigate the industry will always be an ongoing process, and I look forward to making my mark.

Successfully running a restaurant is extremely difficult. Tell us about some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome.
In comparison to my great-grandfather who left his family half-way around the world to bust his ass for 15 years to establish a new life, we’ve had a pretty smooth ride! But obviously there are a lot of challenges for a small food business nowadays, especially one who tries to “do it right” by producing quality products, taking care their employees, and not cutting corners.

The food manufacturing industry is a land of giants where large food manufacturers and distributors often sacrifice quality for added profitability. This in turn sets lower standards and expectations in the marketplace for both price and quality. It sounds cliché, but the best and only way we’ve gotten around it is by offering a premium product, with excellent customer service, at competitive prices, to quality-focused businesses that we can foster long-term relationships with. We just have to do the best we can, and work with people who know value when they see it.

Good restaurant owners and chefs recognize quality products and realize that good restaurants must serve great food. It’s just good business. Not only do we make a great product, but our retail presence is limited to a select few independent butchers, markets and delis in the southern California area. This ensures that only reputable businesses are selling our product, and comforts our restaurant customers by letting them know that they aren’t serving a product that can just as easily be found on the shelves of a supermarket.

Of course, none of what we do could take place without making sure our business runs smoothly, which is credit to our employees. We aim to take care of our employees like they are family by providing good pay, an exceptional health care plan, and consistent 40 hour work weeks to everyone. These benefits are necessary for a good life, so, for us, providing them is a no-brainer, but many of our competitors don’t prioritize employee benefits in order to cut costs, and it can make it tough for us to compete against them. The USDA inspectors who pay us their daily visits consistently tell us that we have one of the cleanest and most efficient operations in the greater Los Angeles area, and our employees are the ones who make that happen day in and day out.

Is there something unique or interesting about Maestro Sausage Company that our readers should know about?
If you live in Los Angeles, chances are, at one time or another, you’ve eaten our sausage without even knowing it. Even your parents have most likely eaten our sausage, and probably your grandparents too! Having begun operations at Eastside Market in 1926, we’re older than Farmer John (1931), which leads us to believe that we’re the oldest sausage company in Los Angeles. In almost every neighborhood we can name one or two of our customers that the locals love, and it’s great fun to blow people’s minds by telling them that we make the sausage on the pizza or in the sandwich that they’ve ordered once a week for their entire lives. Even Frank Sinatra used to special order extra boxes of our sausages from the owner of Matteo’s in West Hollywood to cook at home. And if you google “Frank Sinatra sausage and peppers,” it was no secret that the dish was one of his favorite things to cook.

All of our success is because of the quality of our products. We’ve invested in the best equipment, the best cuts of pork, and we even carefully monitor the oil levels in our spice blends to ensure absolute consistency. And it shows.

Coming from our Italian Meat Market roots, it’s no surprise that our Mild and Hot Italian Sausage are our biggest sellers. Our sausages are old school, and on a daily basis people from the East Coast tell us that the quality of our Italian Sausages beats those on the East Coast where “good Italian Sausage is everywhere.” Our Italian with wine & cheese is probably our most popular specialty sausage among discerning Italians, and our Italian with Goat Milk Cheddar Cheese has developed a huge following in Orange County where it’s sold at The Butchery butcher shops.

Our other traditional sausage recipes like our English Bangers, Andouille, and Linguicas are extremely popular because people can recognize the quality in comparing it to what they grew up eating. While we’ve also been making some specialty Chorizo recipes for a long time now, and we’ve most recently begun making higher-end versions of traditional chorizo recipes for some of the most well-known Mexican restaurants around LA. So far, the feedback we’ve been getting on the new Chorizo recipes has been outstanding. I can’t wait to see where our future in Chorizo takes us… I’ve been practicing my Spanish.

We also love introducing people to new twists on common sausage recipes. Our “East LA Sausage & Peppers” that we served at the LA Street Food Festival a few years back took an Angeleno twist on a traditional sausage and peppers sandwich by piling it into a corn tortilla with some smoked gouda. It was a hit. Italian sausage and corn tortillas are an extremely underrated combo, as is Italian sausage with avocado. The best tasting sausage sandwiches only have one or two toppings to let the sausage speak for itself, and, at least in my book, nothing can beat a hot Italian sausage and avocado sandwich. Nothing.

Most Popular Items

Maestro Italian Sausage

Maestro’s signature medium-coarse grind, fresh, trimmed pork shoulders, and traditional, old-world Italian spice blend goes into making the same great Italian Sausage that the Pontrelli family has been producing for four generations.

Maestro Italian Sausage with Goat Cheese

Maestro’s oregano-based Italian sausage is made with a rich goat-milk cheddar cheese to create a uniquely flavored Italian sausage that is particularly satisfying and savory.

Maestro Three Pepper Sausage

Made from a mixture of spicy jalapenos, sweet bell peppers, black pepper, and brown sugar, this is a deliciously well-rounded, smoky, sweet, and spicy sausage.

Maestro Chorizo

Maestro’s Chorizo is a premium-quality Mexican chorizo sausage made from only fresh, lean, trimmed pork shoulders, unlike low-quality, industry-standard chorizos that often contain questionable ingredients.

Maestro Andouille

Maestro’s Andouille Sausage is a fully cooked, smoky, spicy sausage that is a favorite in Cajun and Southern Cuisine.