Joe's Italian Kitchen Fine Foods and Joe's Moods for Six Years
By Sam Calhoun

If you were to walk into Joe Cafaro's mother's home around dinner time, chances are you would find the same food on the table that Joe serves in his restaurant, Joe's Italian Kitchen at 190 Boone Heights Drive.

And that's saying something. Cafaro's mother Helen follows 100-year-old recipes from her family's birthplaces of Calabria, Italy, and Sicily.

"It's the same meals my mom and dad make. My mother hates when I say this, but I do peasant food, family food," said Cafaro, owner of Joe's Italian Kitchen. "It's no different than my mother's food. It's the same thing you'll find on my mother's table."

This claim has a check and balance. Cafaro regularly brings his dishes home for his mother to taste test. If something doesn't taste right, Cafaro hears about it and makes the chance immediately. If you're wondering, Cafaro's parents eat his food at least three times per week.

Everything about Joe's Italian Kitchen is authentic. From Cafaro's ever-changing mood to his thick accent, from the Frank Sinatra music that echos through his restaurant to his bulging cannolis, from his recipes to his finished products, Cafaro brings a slice of Italy to the High Country.

Cafaro explained that Italians, in general, don't skimp on ingredients. Even if an ingredient is expensive, it must be bought and used- there is no cheaper substitute. That tenet of Italian cooking is alive and well at Joe's Italian Kitchen where hardly anything in the restaurant is premade.

"Ninety-four percent of our food is homemade on premise," said Cafaro. "That's huge. And there's no deviation off family recipes. None."

Cafaro is a self-taught cook; although he learned the basics of Italian cooking starting at age 6 from his mother. The result is a menu filled with every recognizable dish and then some. Cafaro's menu includes paninis, cold sandwiches, hot sandwiches, pastas of all kinds, antipasta, salads, strombolis, meat dishes, pizzas, cakes, cheesecakes, pastries and cookies.

But Cafaro didn't start out as a cook. He actually started out as a hippie.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Cafaro attended Catholic school and then went to trade school to become an electrician. Growing up in the Big Apple, Cafaro has fond memories of hanging out at his uncle Sammy's luncheonette around the corner from Macy's.

After graduating from trade school, Cafaro enrolled in New York City Community College in 1966 where he took up electronics and drafting. "But I quit in 1969," said Cafaro.

Yes, Cafaro got swept away in the Summer of Love and hitchhiked to California and then back to New York to go to Woodstock. Cafaro's hippie days lasted almost a decade before he moves to Charlotte to find a job in 1980.

In North Carolina, Cafaro held jobs in the clothing and restaurant industry before going back to school at Central Piedmont Community College where he graduated with honors in 1991 in computer engineering- 25 years after he originally enrolled in college. Two years later, Cafaro's ex-wife convinced him to move to Boone.

With his new degree, Cafaro worked as a computer engineer for New River Mental Health and Watauga County Schools for six years. Desiring a change of profession, Cafaro decided not to renew his contract with Watauga County Schools in 1999 and began teaching cooking classes at the Taylor House in Valle Crucis.