Ex-burg restarauteur Lou Crecco dies:
Restaurant was a pearl of the Burg
NORTH MIAMI, Fla. — Legendary Trenton restaurateur Lou Crecco died Wednesday at 1 a.m. at his Jockey Club home of either a heart attack or stroke, said his wife, Denise. He was 87.
From the 1940s to the 1990s, Crecco’s Restaurant and Bar at Morris Avenue and Anderson Street in Trenton was the heart of good food and entertainment in Trenton’s Chambersburg section, playing host to national celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Ernie Kovacs and Tommy Dorsey.
“Lou Crecco was a great guy,” said Sharon Jemison, co-owner of Rossi’s Tavern. “He was the reason we have our tenderloin steak sandwiches. Sammy Fruscione’s served us our meat, us and Crecco. Lou and my dad were friends. He will be missed.”
Alan Meinster, owner of Marsilio’s Kitchen, recalled his first year in the business, fresh out of college, in 1986.
“Lou Crecco was still there at Crecco’s,” he said, “and as a brand new restaurateur, I wanted to understand and learn about ‘The King’ and his business, and how he became so well known — how he became the ‘Tiffany of Italian Food’ in Mercer County, which was their slogan.”
He said on his quiet nights, “I would go over there for a cocktail, and I’d watch a symphony of servers who stood at attention and paid attention to every detail. And no matter whether it was a busy night or there were only 10 people in the restaurant, Lou Crecco was there, to make sure that the guests got the service and the quality that they had hoped for.
“He was the epitome of what a restaurateur should be.”
Denise, who worked at the Jockey Club, met Lou there in 1979 and married him 17 years ago.
“We would be sitting next to Burt Reynolds and Bob Hope,” she said. “He had a couple of apartments here and we met, and we’ve been going together ever since, and we married in 1994.” He retired there in 1989.
She remembers the last celebrity who showed up at Crecco’s on a Sunday night before Lou left Trenton for Miami to live permanently. “It was Jay Leno,” she said. “Lou lived above the restaurant, and they called him from downstairs and said Jay Leno was there.
“And he (Lou) was so burnt out from the whole 41 years of running the restaurant that he just said, ‘That’s really nice; pick up his check, tell him to have a nice dinner — and I won’t be coming down.’ Because he usually would go down and take pictures with the celebrities.”
His widow said Crecco “had a very, very lovely life; he ran 16 marathons, he was a pilot in World War II. There’s a lot of people in Trenton who adore him. He’s going to be missed by a lot of people. Crecco’s was a wonderful place.”
On The Trentonian’s Facebook page, Gary DalCorso wrote that his favorite memory of Crecco’s was “Going there right after seeing Frankie Valli and Four Seasons at the War Memorial, Sunday night, it is snowing, you walk into Crecco’s and it’s romantic...wine, song, fabulous cuisine, atmosphere, steaks and shrimp sizzling by your table, and it is heaven.”