Louis Polidori, who was in the Italian-sausage business in Denver for most of 80 years, died at a care center June 23. He was 93.
He had been in good health until three years ago, when he suffered neck injuries in a car accident.
Polidori and his wife, Carolyn, ran a “corner grocery store,” Polidori’s Grocery and Meat Market, owned by his father and his uncle.
Carolyn Polidori made sausage and “customers would come in and smell the sausage cooking and ask for samples,” said Melodie Polidori Harris, his granddaughter, in a 2007 interview with The Denver Post. Before long they were asking to buy it for their homes or their restaurants.
Today it is a wholesale meat business, Polidori’s Meat Products, run by Louis Polidori’s grandchildren, Steve Polidori and Melodie Polidori Harris.
They sell meats to King Soopers as well as to dozens of restaurants, said Louis Polidori’s daughter, Joanne Knoll of Nashville, Tenn. The company makes Italian sausage, bratwurst, chorizo, meatballs and breakfast, or patty sausage. Louis Polidori preferred sausage in tomato sauce.
Long after retiring, Polidori made frequent visits to the place, “always willing to give advice” said his son, Gary Polidori and father of Steve and Melodie. “Sometimes they listen; sometimes they don’t,” he said, laughing.
“The business was his life,” said Gary Polidori of Morrison. “He always believed he should treat people nicely and work hard.”
Louis Polidori was born in Magna, Utah, on Feb. 27, 1917, the son of Italian immigrants, and moved with his family to Denver in 1925. His parents, Rocco and Anna Polidori, ran the store until 1945 when Augi and Louis took over.
Louis worked in his parents’ store, then at 3401 Shoshone St., then took time off to work as a salesman for a firm that sold imported foods. He later went to work for a construction company rebuilding Pearl Harbor, then returned to the business and ran it for decades. “He was the butcher,” Knoll said.
He graduated from Horace Mann Middle School and attended North High School, earning a GED later.
He married Carolyn Dispense on Feb. 27, 1938.
In addition to his son and daughter, he is survived by two other sons: Daniel Polidori of Chandler, Ariz., and Steven Polidori of Greenwood Village; seven grandchildren; three great-grandchildren and his brother, Augi Polidori.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
