The original location in Boston’s North End (Little Italy) opened in 1973 by my father, Paul ‘The Calamari King’ Freddura, a first-generation Sicilian American. It was the early 70’s, and out of this ‘shoe box storefront’, he started frying squid, calling it calamari! It wasn’t long after Paul met Maria from upstate NY in 1979. Together, they transformed this storefront into a tiny eatery known as the Calamari Cafe, complete with checkered tablecloths in an open kitchen. This was a time for innovation, introducing pasta in the pan, which included their infamous clams and linguine, freshly shucked from the shell! Maria and Paul traveled along the east coast marketing calamari products and somehow found time to have seven sons (yes, seven!).

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