Looking back at the legacy of Gino’s Italian Restaurant and its heart and soul, “Mama” Grace Marino

After nearly 60 years of serving veal Sorrentina, ​​arancini and Laurence bread to Baton Rouge, Gino Marino of Gino’s Italian Restaurant has legendary tales—especially about his mother, “Mama” Grace Marino.

“It would take us a week to tell you the stories,” Gino says. “Paul Newman fell in love with my mother. He couldn’t believe Mama existed.”

In 1958, a young Gino immigrated from Siculiana, Sicily, to Baton Rouge with his mother and sister, bringing along family recipes and an eagerness to share them. Eight years later, Grace and her husband, Vincent Marino, who had immigrated to the U.S. a few years prior with their older son Laurence, opened the original location of Gino’s Italian Restaurant in a small space on Perkins Road.

While Gino went off to play football at Southeastern Louisiana University, the restaurant back home flourished, with patrons packing the house each night to get a taste of Grace’s authentic Italian cooking. After Gino returned to Baton Rouge from college, he and his siblings knew it was time to expand the restaurant. He says the tiny Perkins Road eatery had more business than it could handle.

“We couldn’t get deliveries because we were too small,” he recalls.

Grace wasn’t initially sold on the move, Gino says, but eventually the family began their search for a bigger space, which they found in excess on Bennington Avenue in a recently shuttered Irish pub–green carpet included.

In 1975, the family moved Gino’s from its original 35-seat home to a multi-room restaurant with seating for 220. But what seemed like a deal they couldn’t refuse soon turned into what Gino calls a “runaway train.”

“Nobody really knows what we went through as a family,” he says about the early years on Bennington Avenue. “We hung in there, persevered, and little by little, things started happening.”

The Marinos fought the temptation to flee back to Perkins Road and worked day by day to scale a sustainable business, cutting costs and streamlining operations. Still, throughout the period of trials, Gino says the team was driven by one of his mother’s most important directives: consistency.

Fifty-plus years later, and even after Grace’s death in 2017, that point of pride holds true at the restaurant. Most of the kitchen staff has been with Gino’s for at least 20 years, Gino says. That’s two decades of mastering its signature red sauce and meatballs, following recipes first developed by Grace, who helmed the kitchen into her 90s. Earlier this fall, Gino recalls, a couple called him over to their table to tell him that the restaurant’s eggplant and veal Parmesan tasted the same as the night they got engaged at the original location decades ago.

Grace’s presence still informs every aspect of the business today, Gino says. And her impact is felt throughout the Baton Rouge dining community. So much so that the Baton Rouge Epicurean Society named its lifetime achievement award in her honor after making her its first recipient in 2007.

Since then, the award has been granted to other legendary local restauranteurs and chefs, including Chef John Folse; Luci and Wayne Stabiler, behind places like Stab’s, The Little Village and Sammy’s Grill; Bob and Cheryl Kirchoff, owners of Superior Grill; T.J. Moran of TJ Ribs and Ruffino’s; the Pizzolato family, behind Tony’s Seafood; and Gino himself.

“The award was created to honor a leader in the Baton Rouge restaurant and hospitality industry who has made a lasting impact both through their work and their contributions to the community. Grace Marino was the embodiment of that spirit,” Sarah Gray, executive director of BRES, says today.

Gino’s was inducted into the Louisiana Restaurant Hall of Fame in 2014 and is an 18-time winner of Best Italian in the annual Best of 225 Awards—good luck trying to score a table on a Friday or Saturday night.

And while the accolades are nice, Gino says the restaurant is about something more. These days, it’s about honoring his mother’s commitment to quality, steadfast standards and love of cooking. They’re the reason Baton Rougeans have been coming back for over half a century, after all.

“We just want to carry on her legacy,” Gino says. “She loved this restaurant.”

This article was originally published in the December 2025 issue of 225 Magazine.