Fossati’s Delicatessen

302 South Main Street

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Francesco Napolene Fossati was born in Cocaglio, Province of Breschia, Lombardy, Italy, on December 13, 1852, the tenth of fifteen children. He spent his youth in Austria learning the trade of stone cutting. In 1880, Fossati gathered his belongings and immigrated to America to make a new life for himself. Passing through immigration in August 1881 in the New World, Francesco “Fraschio” Napolene became Frank Napoleon Fossati. Frank Fossati learned that the “new” Texas State Capitol was being built in Austin, and there was a demand for stone cutters. He arrived in Austin only to find that he was five years too early, for the Capitol was just in the planning stages.

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In 1895, Fossati purchased a small piece of property at the corner of Juan Linn and Main Street in Victoria, Texas. The address: 302 South Main Street. Here he had built the building that would eventually become the final location of Fossati’s Delicatessen.

 

Contractors Louis Schuchert, Sr., and Bill Harris were chosen to build what continues to be Fossati's Delicatessen. The lumber cost ninety dollars. The labor totaled $125. As originally built, the building was fifty by twenty-seven feet.

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You can read all about Fossati's in Volume I of Historic Homes of Victoria, available here online through our SHOP or at the Victoria Preservation, Inc. office.