My late Nonno Tom (grandfather) started a boot making shop in this very same street (Keen Street) around 1941. So started Pagotto’s in business in the Lismore C.B.D. As WWII gathered momentum regulations meant that he had to close the shop down.
In 1959 he was back, this time in Woodlark with a fruit and vegetable shop called the New City Fruit and Vegetable Market trading for approximately 15 years. People came from as far as Grafton in the south which was a longer journey in those days.” The Pineapple King”.

My late father Tony moved back from Sydney when I was one and around 1975 bought WP Walters solicitors (Now Walters in Molesworth Street) and practised law as the senior partner until 2006. Some say the best and most easy going solicitor they’ve ever met.
My Nonno’s brother Ernie started a fruit and vegetable market in Magellan Street in 1958 called Magellan Fruit Market. Later on in the mid 60’s he started Ernie’s Fish Bar in Woodlark Street selling quality fish and chips.

If you’ve been in Lismore in the last 35 years you’ll know my cousin Gildo’s butcher shop, simply called Pagotto’s Butchers. Here he made some fantastic small goods, including the best salami in Lismore, as well as fresh meat. Gildo was in business for 25 years, until he retired in 1996.

So in 2010, following a dream I have had since I was fifteen, Trattoria Pagotto opens providing the people of Lismore and surrounds with the fresh, wholesome, traditional everyday food that we used to eat growing up. Approximately 68 years after my Nonno Tom, first opened a business in Lismore.

Simon “Spaghetti” Pagotto.