Patrick Mendoza, the restaurant’s former owner, and his neighbor Rocco Giovanello probably aren’t famous names, but in Boston’s dynamic North End, their decades-long feud, culminating in Modern Pastry, is legendary. A legend of molto dolce.
A little before 11:00 p. m. On a hot summer afternoon on Hanover Street, everything runs smoothly as usual in the North End. Old-school citizens chatted in a lively organization on the sidewalk, preventing in unison from seeing a neighbor from the new school dressed in a tight Connecticut suit pass by. ponytail and dressed in Lululemon from head to toe. The owner of Dolce Vita Ristorante serenaded the last consumers of his restaurant. And a line of other people arguably looking for the most productive cannoli in the country stretched out into the Modern Patry outdoors.
This nightly ritual is part of the soul that runs through Boston’s Little Italy, as well as through the veins of Patrick “Pato” Mendoza, a nervous 54-year-old man with gray braids and the appearance of a good-looking bad boy, who that night was pedaling on a motorcycle with a flat-tipped Array. 38 revolver tucked into the waistband of his pants.
Pato, owner of Monica’s Trattoria restaurant in North End, knew those streets well, but he met fewer people every day. Around them were tourists and newcomers, the same people many longtime North End citizens complain about, claiming they suck the soul out of the community with their endless crying over how weekend parties eat up parking spots and crowds overflow from sidewalk eating places. Pato had long criticized Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for supporting plaintiffs in evaluating outdoor dining prices in the community. In fact, he had even sued her for it.
That night, however, Pato’s ire was focused on another person who had bothered him: Rocco “Rocky” Giovanello, a 60-year-old painter who lives in an apartment above Modern Pastry. The two men had known each other for decades, but they weren’t really friends. In fact, they were embroiled in a long-running feud that had brought out each other’s darkest impulses, a series of comings and goings that had begun decades earlier.
Pato and Rocky’s cycle of retaliatory attacks was hardly the first blood feud of its kind between guys in the North End with bad tempers, access to weapons, and long memories. The neighborhood has historically been a place where Old World Italian sensibilities have been a way of life, and many of the North End’s original residents are as proud of that as they are of their ability to settle their own issues without involving the cops. “This neighborhood is like a tiny village in the old country,” says a North End restaurateur who asked not to be identified because he says he doesn’t “want to be accused of talking out of school” about his lifelong neighbors. “[Pato and Rocky] are two guys, good guys mostly. When all is said and done, this is an incestuous feud in a tiny Italian neighborhood where people are known to take shit personally. It’s a village. But it’s our village.”
Lately, however, as the North End fills with affluent newcomers and many of its older and longtime citizens flee to suburban apartments on the North Shore, the types of disputes we’re seeing look more and more alike. to those of North End. Legal battle. Restaurateurs and Mayor Wu. From those days, we rarely see glimpses of violence rooted in ancient values inherited from countries like Calabria and Sicily. But they are not out of the question.
There are some holdouts who help sustain the North End’s reputation for using strong-arm tactics to solve neighborhood issues. In 2020, armed residents showed up in force to safeguard local shops from potential looting after George Floyd’s death. And they don’t keep quiet when they think their way of life is being threatened. North Enders went to war to keep a Starbucks from opening in the neighborhood, and Pato, plus a handful of other restaurant owners, kept their establishments open during the pandemic in defiance of the COVID-19 lockdowns and what they believed was government overreach into the neighborhood’s affairs.
To those Old World guys, Rocky had done anything that was simply forbidden: In 2019, he went to the police and reported Pato after Pato allegedly beat him and threatened him with a knife. To make matters worse, Rocky then went back to the police to report small slights he believed came from Pato. And so, as Pato pedaled to track down Rocky on that hot summer night, perhaps he was protecting not only his honor, but also a dying code in a tradition-bound community that was fading before his eyes. .
Not so long ago, the North End was as well known for its mafia jobs as it was for its homemade meatballs. Community tango with the Mafia began in the 1910s, and lasted until 1983, when federal law enforcement agents arrested the Angiulo brothers. For the kingpins of the time, there was a mob boss to keep the others in line. Many low-level, trigger-happy officers attempted to fill the force vacuum that occurred in the North End after the Angiulo’s arrest, but none achieved the goal. The much-vaunted prestige of a hard-hitting mafia boss. Today, there is no apparent presence of crowds in the North End and no officials tasked with maintaining order, leading some older northerners and veterans to yearn for the days when the Angiulos were there. And, as someone put it, “the punks paid the price. “
Both Rocky and Pato are likely the kinds of punks for whom the capos of yesteryear would have had little patience. According to a source in the North End, one year during Saint Anthony’s Feast in August, when the streets were swollen with people, Rocky spotted a Boston Police horse tied up. He allegedly took advantage of a moment when the officer wasn’t paying attention, untied the horse, mounted it, and took off down the street toward the Old North Church à la Paul Revere, with cops chasing behind him on foot. The story has become North End legend.
Nothing about the incident appears in Rocky’s criminal history, but if true, this might be the first time Rocky has been attacked disguised as someone who maintains law and order, but it wouldn’t be the last. Over the years, he has become known in the North End for standing up for justice, or at least what he believed to be justice. “He was the sheriff that nobody was asking for,” said a North End police officer who had dealt with Rocky over the years and asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
One of Rocky’s first attempts to maintain order had to do with a member of his family. One night in December 1999, Rocky and his brother Joseph got into an argument that escalated temporarily. Rocky pulled out a . 38-caliber Array pistol and pointed it at his brother and father, and threatened to kill them both, at least that’s what Joseph later told police. Joseph also told police he controlled to grab the gun from Rocky, who then fled. Joseph raced on the North End track, he later told police, and dumped the gun in Boston Harbor.
Still, Rocky wasn’t finished. Six days later, he returned to the family apartment on Prince Street with a knife, Joseph told the police. Inside, Rocky found Joseph and his father eating dinner and once again threatened to kill them. Rocky was arrested on assault charges. (The charges were dismissed.)
In 2013, Rocky once again played the role of executor, this time with a complete stranger. Susan Bigusiak had recently moved to the North End and had a concept to monetize the neighborhood’s history and culture. He began offering tours to visitors, calling one of them. “The Pizza and Paisan Tour”. Rocky didn’t like her using the word paisan, which means compatriot, or even friend, and neither did many former Italians, Rocky told her, according to a Boston police report. Not only is Bigusiak an outsider in the North End, but Rocky and others assumed she wasn’t even Italian.
Instead of simply complaining about the newcomer’s business, Rocky took a more proactive approach. On a rainy night in June 2013, Bigusiak told police she was at a restaurant on Salem Street when Rocky walked through the door and approached her. Do you think you’re using the word paisan in your tour call?she told police that Rocky yelled at her.
Bigusiak tried to tell Rocky that the word wasn’t a derogatory term. Rocky was uninfluenced and continued to lash out at her until he stormed out of the restaurant, according to his account to police.
But it wasn’t over. The next day, while Bigusiak was out to dinner with her niece, she told police that Rocky had chased her again, informing her that he was going to remove all community postcards advertising his tour. Feeling threatened, Bigusiak would do anything. About that. A few days later, according to the police report, he approached a police officer who was running outside a structure site and explained what had happened to Rocky over the previous week. The officer noted in his report that “his lips trembled with fear” as he told the story. Bigusiak plucked up the courage to tell the officer where he could find Rocky: he was known for hanging out on Parmenter Street.
The two headed to Parmenter, where he met Rocky when he left Alba Produce. The officer asked Rocky for his identification, according to the police report. Rocky reached into his pocket and turned it over. Still, while the agent recorded the data discovered in Rocky’s transient license, Rocky kept things interesting.
“Give me back my f***ing license,” Rocky began yelling, according to the police report. The officer grabbed his radio and called for backup.
“Who is you and why are you with this woman?” said the officer who had asked Rocky.
By then, the commotion had drawn a crowd of about 30 people, plus Patty Papa, Mayor Thomas Menino’s North End liaison, surrounding the officer and Rocky. Eventually, the police took Rocky away in (The charges were later dismissed). Despite his arrest, Rocky probably would have managed to accomplish one thing: get rid of the tour. According to several North End residents, Bigusiak eventually packed up his belongings and left the neighborhood. (Attempts to triumph against Rocky and his lawyer went unanswered. )
Nearly eight years later, Rocky would have another run-in with the police. In February 2021, Paul D’Amore, the chef of Massimino’s, was inside Alba’s when he ran into Rocky, who looked to be intoxicated and was acting aggressively, according to D’Amore’s account in the police report. He allegedly demanded that D’Amore pay him $140 that he claimed he was owed for work he did for the chef years ago. D’Amore—a unique character in the North End who competes as a calf roper at rodeos throughout the Northeast—informed police that he told Rocky he’d write him a check to clear up the misunderstanding.
“Are we okay?” D’Amore Rocky.
“No,” Rocky replied before going into the back of the store, grabbing a large produce knife, and charging at D’Amore, according to D’Amore’s account in the police report.
D’Amore ran to the door, down the street, and into his restaurant on Endicott Street. But Rocky wouldn’t let him go. He picked up the phone and called D’Amore to ask for the cash again. D’Amore had enough and called the police. Rocky was charged with assault with a harmful weapon, as well as assault and battery on a police officer and resistance. arrest. After two years and court hearings, he was found not guilty of the assault with a harmful weapon and the other charges were dropped.
Still, for all of Rocky’s confrontational antics, there was one incident that stood out. The one that started the blood feud with Pato in the first place.
One thing Pato had in common with Rocky was his own criminal history. According to BPD records, in the late 1990s, police charged Pato with trespassing, among other crimes. (He condemned him. ) In December 2020, officials arrested him after he allegedly stole someone’s mobile phone and threatened to kill that person (he was eventually charged with robbery and the case is awaiting trial).
More recently, Pato and his brother, Jorge, a North End chef, were among those who landed on a list of people Mayor Wu’s team gave to police because the team felt they were security threats. The pair made the list, according to the mayor’s office, after protesting outside her home over Wu’s COVID policies and also protesting at City Hall over her North End restaurant policies.
In other ways, Pato and his family were nothing less than a generational North End tale of good fortune. His family was part of Argentina’s gigantic Italian network before emigrating to the United States in the 1980s, when his country’s economy was weakening. Loose drop. As might be expected for a circle of relatives of Italian descent, they settled in the North End.
In 1995, they opened a simple red sauce restaurant named after the matriarch of the family, Monica, who worked there with her husband and at least three of their children, Jorge, Pato and Frankie, and, when the time came, their grandchildren. Eventually, the company was split into two restaurants: Monica’s Trattoria, owned by Pato and Frankie, and Vinoteca di Monica, owned by Jorge.
The trattoria was one of actor Daniel Day-Lewis’ favorite haunts when he was studying how to make violins in 2022 at the neighborhood’s famed North Bennet Street School. Day-Lewis’s pointed jaw and dark, piercing eyes bore more than a passing resemblance to Duck himself, and according to a neighbor of Pato, who asked not to be identified, after spending time with Day-Lewis, Pato grew his hair to emulate the star.
In addition to the restaurant, Pato and Frankie a shop, Monica’s Mercato
One afternoon in August 2002, police pulled up at 157 Salem Street in reaction to a call from a neighbor that a guy was destroying the façade of one of the Mendoza family’s businesses and threatening anyone who approached him, police said in their report. It had been a hot day, with temperatures reaching 90 degrees and the streets of the North End still wet. Cops got out of their car to locate Rocky, in shorts, sitting on the front porch.
“I did the community a favor,” he told police, according to the incident report. When officials entered the Mendozas’ traditional baseball cap production business, they discovered overturned display boxes, damaged windows and products strewn everywhere. In the midst of the destruction, Rocky continued to insist that his vigilance was justified. “This has been going on for years — they’re promoting drugs there,” he told police, according to the report.
“I’m tired of him. I know they’re going to stop me. It probably wouldn’t be a problem,” Rocky told deputies, according to his report, before handcuffing him and then charging him with destruction of property, which was ultimately dismissed. No member of Mendoza’s family circle has ever been accused of drug trafficking.
Tonight marks a point of no return. For the next 21 years, the feud between Pato and Rocky simmered, with verbal insults exchanged and hands raised when they passed each other on the street. However, in February 2019, the dispute reached a boiling point. One morning, Pato’s brother, Frankie, came out of Monica’s space and stopped to chat with his girlfriend, leading to a traffic jam on Salem Street, according to a police report describing the incident. The drivers were there, but only one user leaned on his horn: Rocky. Of course, that’s something forbidden in the neighborhood.
Frankie and Rocky exchanged a few choice words before Rocky left for his evenings, according to the police report. Later that day, Rocky learned that Frankie was looking for him and thought about apologizing. So when Rocky saw Frankie waving at his car as Rocky, that afternoon he walked down Parmenter Street toward Salem Street and stopped to talk, Rocky later told police.
As Rocky got out of his car, Pato ran over and smashed a glass bottle on Rocky’s head. The Mendoza brothers pounced on him, kicking and punching Rocky as he lay on the ground. Frankie then ripped off Rocky’s car’s external mirror and began hitting Rocky with it, according to the police report.
If that wasn’t enough, Pato pulled out a knife, Rocky later told police. Thinking he was going to get stabbed, Rocky kicked Pato as hard as he could and scrambled to his feet in an attempt to fend him off. Another North Ender saw the melee and, fearing someone was going to get killed, tried to break up the fight. Once he successfully pulled the men apart, the samaritan urged his neighbors to go home and cool down. It could have been an everyday street fight, just another ugly incident in the not-so-secret ongoing feud between Rocky and Pato over slights big and small, real and imagined. But then Rocky did something that many old-school North Enders look down on: He went to the cops.
During a phone interview with detectives three days later, Rocky described the beating to police. Rocky referred to his nemesis as “Patho” instead of the nickname Pato. According to some North End residents, Patho, as in pathological, was a more apt moniker.
The police investigation almost stalled as soon as it started. Unlike Rocky, neighbors in the North End weren’t inclined to rat out anyone. When officers went to the laundromat near the fight and asked for the security camera video, the police report noted that the owners told them the camera was inoperable. When the cops talked to the owner of a nearby restaurant, police said he told them that he saw the commotion but couldn’t make out any of the details. It seemed that everyone, as usual in the North End, was minding their own business.
Eventually, one business owner turned over their surveillance video, which confirmed Rocky’s account of the incident, and the following week, Pato was arrested. (According to the Suffolk County DA’s office, there is no record that Frankie was ever charged.) In December 2022, a jury found Pato guilty of assault and battery, and a judge sentenced him to probation, which was set to end seven months later, on July 12, 2023. (Pato’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.)
However, as the hearing approached, Rocky filed new complaints, telling the court that Pato was “riding his motorcycle toward him. . . She laughed at him and pointed her middle finger at him. “Rocky told the court it was “an ongoing issue” that made him “fear for the protection of his family. “
As a result, when Pato sat in the Edward Brooke Courthouse on New Chardon Street on July 12 for what was supposed to be his last parole hearing, a sentence ruled that he had violated his probation, meaning there would be out-of-court hearings. in their future. Anger tends to become more potent when it is fed, and this news was like a big bowl of pasta.
It seemed that Pato had had enough. Later that day, he grabbed his gun and set off on his old black bike toward Rocky. It wasn’t until around 10:30 p. m. that he discovered his target, the state on the sidewalk in front of Modern Pastry.
“Damn! I’m going to get you,” Rocky told police, yelling Duck at him. Video evidence shows Pato approaching him, pulling a gun from his belt, pointing it in Rocky’s direction and firing a bullet. “I’m going to kill you, son of a bitch, it’s going to be quick,” prosecutors would later tell the court, Pato said as he fired another shot. As bystanders tried to hide, Rocky told police he was hiding a jeep. One of the shots made a hole in the front window of Modern Pastry. None of the bullets hit anyone on the street, adding to their target. When the shooting stopped, Rocky began running for his life toward the Rose Kennedy Greenway between the North End and Faneuil Hall, where he arrested a policeman.
On Hanover Street, witnesses saw Pato get on his motorbike and pedal. At one point, he got into a van with license plates at Monica’s Trattoria and drove off. Then he disappeared. Police issued a bulletin urging officials to exercise caution when approaching Pato, who considered him armed, dangerous and likely suicidal.
For 8 days there was no sign of Pato. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air. In fact, Pato had enrolled in a drug treatment center in Falmouth. On July 21, the police attacked him, arrived at the premises and charged him with assault with intent to kill, attack. with a harmful weapon and firearm charges. Pato has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Back in the North End, bullet holes in Modern Pastry’s window have become the backdrop for an endless stream of selfies for tourists, who queued up in even greater numbers to model the bakery’s famous cannoli. The prisoners in the North End, however, had another view of the incident. While Pato had perpetrated a brazen attack in the center of the neighborhood, outside one of his most iconic businesses, few people felt any sympathy for the guy who nearly lost his life. on Hanover Street that night. Several residents, who, unsurprisingly, asked to remain anonymous, even Alidea Rocky had noticed. “Rocky could be a great guy,” said one elderly North Ender user. “But he didn’t know how to take care of his damn business. “
This dispute is a stark reminder that the days of other people staying silent and minding their own business are possibly coming to an end. After all, North End is no longer a tightly controlled, mob-run neighborhood. “This type of small-scale meat would never have been tolerated in Angiulo’s time. “
A woman attending Italian Mass at St. Leonard’s Church on Hanover Street one Sunday seemed to echo that sentiment—if with a bit of nostalgia. “Maybe all of this will make people fight for the old ways,” she said, adding that people should stop running their mouths and let the neighborhood be the kind of place it’s always been. Then she paused in front of the Madonna statue in the church’s courtyard, crossed herself, shrugged, and added, “Boys will be boys.”
First published in the print edition of the December 2023/January 2024 issue with the headline, “Take the Gun, Leave the Cannoli.”
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