70 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM me back to her later in life. And it worked! I’m the only one in the family who was meant to do this.” Growing up, Joey’s destiny wasn’t always clear to him. “I was a chemical engineer, worked in the music industry, produced concerts and festivals, and dabbled in real estate. I’ve tried it all {food coloring} and I have no regrets,” he declares. “When you let go and realize a choice has been made for you, you make the best of it. It’s been a real blessing.” Romolo’s started out specializing in ice cream, but in the late 1970s and ‘80s, it became mostly a wholesale business, supplying spumoni ice cream wedges to some of the most famous Italian restaurants along Fisherman’s Wharf. In the 1990s, food trends shifted and the shop’s handmade cannoli began to take off in popularity. “Those little cannoli shells are fried, hand-filled and take a lot of time to make,” he explains. “We chocolate dip the inside of the shells so they stay crunchy twice as long as an undipped shell. And we fill them when you order them so they stay fresh.” Everything from their cannoli cream fillings to their ice creams and
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