``Had about 100 bucks on me the first time I came over here,'' he says with a wry smile.

It didn't go well, and he soon would return to his native city of Matera in the historic, picturesque southern Italy region of Basilicata near the Ionian Sea and became involved in a couple of Italian restaurants that turned out to be quite profitable.

Indeed, so profitable that Angelo Rafael Marciuliano returned to America in 1994, and within a year was operating a successful dining establishment in Naples called Bacchus that lasted 10 years until a new tenant named Michael Dene took over and eventually opened Michael's at the same site.

``I'd probably still be there if there hadn't been a change of ownership of the building,'' says Mr. Marciuliano without a hint of remorse. ``But things have worked out well for me. I can't complain about anything. If you came from where I came from living in a two-room hut in a family of seven, you don't take things for granted, and I appreciate the beautiful things God has given me.''

Owner Angelo Marciuliano standing at the entrance to his place, Angelo's Italian Deli, on Second Street in Belmont Shore

He pauses momentarily in reflection, and looks around his deli that is brimming with various Italian wines, cold cuts, cheeses, pastries and myriad other goodies.

Inside view of Angelo's Italian Deli in Belmont Shore

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``I've done pretty well here...especially since I was able to open up the back room and expand the business,'' says Mr. Marciuliano, who has been ensconced at the location since 2001.

And he also has done well at another larger Angelo's Italian Deli on Main Street in Seal Beach which does a flourishing lunch business in its restaurant, as well with its Italian deli products.

Both establishments are renowned for their pizza, meat balls and pasta, not to mention their assortment of Italian sandwiches, including the most famous one, the nearly foot-long Torpedo, stuffed with, among other things, salami, prosciutto, mortadella, provolone, and specially prepared garlic.

``The Torpedo is simply the best deli sandwich in Long Beach,'' says the Naples Improvement Association's President-for-Life Big Mike O'Toole, a gourmand of refined tastes and a private chef for the beau monde of Long Beach like realtor magnate Sue La Bounty and the Dynastic Kings, Kevin and Steve, and the Millers of Home Essence fame, Loren & Catherine.

``I'd like to think everything we put out is good,'' says Mr. Marciuliano, and his many customers would gladly concur.

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Mr. Marciuliano (R) giving culinary pointers to his one if his employees, Jackson Nedham

On Labor Day Monday, a national holiday in celebration of the contributions of American workers, Angelo Marciuliano will not be toiling at his places because, well, both close every Monday anyway.

``I basically work around 90 hours a week,'' says Mr. Marciuliano, who handles the orders from his food and liquor vendors, oversees the help, prepares the delicacies, cooks the pizza and pasta and meat balls and other culinary delights, and, when he takes a rare break, schmoozes with the clientele.

It turns out that Angelo Marciuliano has been working since he quit the eighth grade at age 13, and joined one of his five brothers---he had no sisters---in Ulm, Germany.

``Because I was too young to work, me and a bunch of other young Italians would go to a local factory at three in the morning, and the head guy would put us to work loading trucks,'' he recalls. ``The guy couldn't see our faces well. And, anyway, they needed workers, and we were willing to work. The first time I returned home, I gave all the money to my parents. My father was astonished. I remember him telling me you make more in one day than I do the whole year.''

Later, Mr. Marciuliano would toil for a time in Frankfurt, and then returned to Italy and went to work in Florence where he experienced the restaurant business for the first time, starting as a busboy and dishwasher and working himself up to being a waiter during his three-year residence in the Cradle of the Renaissance with its many illustrious museums including the Uffizi Gallery.

At 18, he sent a resume to the legendary Savoy Hotel in London, which offered him a job as a busboy that he quickly accepted.

After a few months, he moved up to being a waiter in one of Savoy's restaurants---not in its two upscale ones---but, alas, his one-year stay was interrupted by an obligation to serve in the Italian Army.

``Italy had a mandatory one-year conscription in those days, and if you didn't fulfill it you would go to jail,'' he says.

So Angelo Marciuliano wound up at an Army base near Lake Como, and this smart, ambitious resourceful young man---he admits during his teen years he had a mischievous bent---somehow averted training with the infantry and, instead, wound up with a far more cushy position cooking up Italian specialties for the top military brass.

``I was in charge of the kitchen that served food to the captains and majors and generals---and they liked me a lot,'' he says proudly. ``I had some special privileges and had it pretty easy in the Army. I also was able to make a few extra bucks on the side.''

He is smiling in fond remembrance because he admits later being peripherally involved with some of his pals who were fencing hijacked ship containers in England filled with Italian boots.

``I wound up with so many Italian boots I could have opened a footwear store,'' he says with a smile. ``That was a one-time deal because the guys who put it together found out they were under investigation and got out of England before the police got them. Obviously, I never got involved in anything like that again.

"After I got out of the Army, I returned to the Savoy, but I couldn't get my old waiter's job back, and instead worked banquets. Luckily for me, the Savoy had a lot of banquets. I made some good money. I remember one evening I was assigned to take care the great actor, Anthony Quinn, who had just played an Aristotle Onassis character in the film The Greek Tycoon. Real good guy and good tipper.

``I saw all sorts of celebrities around the Savoy all the time---John Wayne, Prince Charles, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Sophia Loren, dozens of other famous people. It was a memorable time in my life.''

But in those long ago days, Angelo Marciuliano was a restless person who didn't stay long at any location, and soon ventured over to Edinburgh, Scotland, then to Newcastle in the northeast of England, then for a time back to Florence.

It was there where he would meet his wife of 27 years and vital contributor to his businesses, Mindy, a Californian who would persuade him to return to this country and with whom he would have a son, Peter, who's now 22.

This time Angelo Marciuliano came back with a lot more than a Ben Franklin in his wallet, since the revenue he earned from his Matera restaurants would enable him to open Bacchus which would enable him to open his two Italian delis with which he has made an indelible impression with the thousands patrons who have frequented them across the years.

"How long do you plan to keep working in your delis?'' Mr. Marciuliano is asked.

"At least until I'm 90,'' he replies impishly, with his eyes gleaming brightly.

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