“My mother loved to cook; it was like her drug,” Joe told PEOPLE at the private opening party for the restaurant on Thursday night. “I always told her I was gonna open up a restaurant for her. Then I got busy. While I signed a contract on this place we lost her. So this is for her.”
Teresa also told PEOPLE at the restaurant opening that she picked up her famous cooking skills from her mama. “We wanted to share her recipes with the world,” she said.
In fact, many of the Italian favorites on the restaurant's menu come from Teresa's cookbook Fabulicious. Many of the dishes are also named after family members, including Melissa's Harvest Salad, Little Joey's Chicken Piccata, and Gia's Chicken Milanese. If you can't make it out to the restaurant to try these delicacies, have no fear. Their pasta sauce will be available for purchase through the restaurant's website.
Teresa and Joe's father, Giacinto Gorga, also stopped by the opening to support his kids' latest business venture. You can see black-and-white photos of the family lining the walls of the establishment in the below photo.
Some famous foodie fans also came out to support Melissa and Joe: Cake Boss' Buddy and Lisa Valastro, who are good friends with the Gorgas.
Teresa and Joe's first cousin, Kathy Wakile, is also planning on opening a restaurant called Pizza Love in New Jersey this June with her husband, Rich Wakile, and two friends. “It’s something I’ve been wanting for such a long time,” Kathy told Page Six about her upcoming venture earlier this month. “I’ve talked about it in the past but the timing wasn’t right, [and] now I have the time to devote to it.”
Source/Photo Credit: Bravo
