'Mr. Hospitality' of St. Paul dies at 80

Longtime St. Paul restaurateur Nick Mancini, who was as beloved on W. 7th Street as his famous charred steaks, died Tuesday at a West St. Paul assisted-living home after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 80.

Mancini started with a bar in 1948 and expanded it into a full-blown Vegas-style Char House restaurant, at 531 W. 7th St., in the 1960s. It became a gathering place for West End residents, politicians, athletes and visitors, who came to sample his special steaks and special brand of hospitality.

Mancini always welcomed customers with a hearty handshake and a smile, greeting old friends, meeting new customers and urging on the staff.

"Nick was Mr. Hospitality, and he taught our generation the dying art of customer service," said Dave Cossetta, a close friend whose family's restaurant, Cossetta's Italian Market and Pizzeria down W. 7th, provided more camaraderie than competition for Mancini over the years.

Mancini's son Pat, who with his brother John has run the restaurant for the past two years, said their father "would travel anywhere in the world, but he always said St. Paul was his home, and he loved it here."

Mayor Chris Coleman called Mancini "a personal and citywide legend."

Mancini served more than just customers. For years he quietly gave free steaks at Christmas to seniors or to others down on their luck, such as the homeless man with a backpack who came by Tuesday asking for Nick.

The host had to tell him that Mancini wasn't in -- and wouldn't be back.

"The mold is now broken," said Hal Langevin, another close friend who supplied Mancini with lobster and other food stocks for 25 years. "He's gone, and no one can fill the shoes that worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day and loved this place every minute of it."Without a question, Nick was the most-loved person in St. Paul," said Don Boxmeyer, a retired St. Paul newspaper columnist. "I never heard anyone say anything nasty about Nick."

Like coming home

The son of Italian immigrants, Mancini was born in St. Paul and grew up in the old Little Italy neighborhood along the river where many immigrant families settled and began their rise.

After a stint in the Army, Mancini was looking for a business to run and bought the old Hathaway's Bar on W. 7th; it was either that, he said, or a nearby gas station.

In the early days, Mancini's mother cooked a little food to sell in the bar. But it wasn't until 1965 that the bar became a steakhouse.

"Nick believed in West 7th Street when no one else did, and invested and expanded," Mayor Coleman said.

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, who was St. Paul's mayor from 1994 to 2002, said he had regular meetings with Mancini when he first considered running in the late 1980s.

"My political upbringing was fortified and nurtured at Mancini's," Sen. Coleman said.

In a typically tough business, Mancini "set the pace and pattern for creating relationships with people, hospitality and warmth," Coleman said. "We lost a little bit of St. Paul and a big chunk of West 7th Street with his passing."

On Tuesday, longtime customers mourned Mancini's passing as they dined.

"He was a real down-to-earth fellow who did things out of the goodness of his heart," said Virginia Swanson, who grew up with Mancini and attended Monroe School with him. "He came from nothing and was always ready to give back."

For Thomas Radke's family, as for countless others, Mancini's became the place to go for important celebrations.

"As long as Grandma still had her teeth and could tear into a steak, this is where you brought her on her birthday," said Radke, of West St. Paul. "Nick greeted everyone at the table and made sure you were pleased. He didn't know your name, he knew you as a customer and made you feel like you were coming home."

Besides his sons Pat, of Inver Grove Heights, and John, of St. Paul, Mancini is survived by his wife, Maryann, of St. Paul; son Nick of St. Paul, and daughter Gina Samuelson of Inver Grove Heights, and five grandchildren. Visitation is planned for Monday at Assumption Catholic Church, 51 W. 7th St., and services are tentatively scheduled there on Tuesday.

Staff writer Howie Padilla contributed to this story.

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