Part of our "Multi-Generation 716 Families" series — stories about the families who built Buffalo, one generation at a time.

A Kid From the Next Block Over

In 1923, Virginio and Enrica Chiari opened a small Italian restaurant at the corner of Seneca and Chicago Streets in downtown Buffalo. It was a 30-seat spot — nothing fancy, just spaghetti, ravioli, chicken and veal cacciatora. The kind of place that fed the neighborhood.

One block away, a kid named Lou Billittier was growing up. In 1941, at twelve years old, he walked into Chef's and got hired to wash dishes. That was the beginning of everything. Lou worked his way up — busboy, then waiter, then manager. By 1950, he was half-owner. In 1954, he borrowed $8,000 from his father Anthony, bought out the original owners, and became the sole owner of Chef's. He was 25 years old, running a restaurant he'd walked into as a child. The corner of Seneca and Chicago would be his for the rest of his life.

A Morning Break That Changed Buffalo Food

In 1962, Lou was having his usual morning break with his good friend Dave Thomas, the host of WKBW-TV's beloved children's show Rocketship 7. Dave — whose real name was David Boreanaz, father of the actor from Bones — was a regular at Chef's along with fellow Channel 7 personalities Irv Weinstein, Rick Azar, and Tom Jolls. That morning, Lou and Dave were bored with the usual spaghetti. They started experimenting in the small open kitchen — what if you took plain pasta, added butter, layered on mozzarella, threw some of Chef's sauce underneath, and melted it all together?

That's how Spaghetti Parm was born. No committee. No focus group. Just two guys messing around on a Tuesday morning. It became the most famous dish in Buffalo. Lou Jr. says it accounts for roughly 80 percent of their business to this day. If you've ever smelled that sauce and heard your order number called over the speakers at Chef's, you know exactly what that plate looks like when it arrives — red checkered tablecloth, steam rising off a mountain of melted cheese, and a smell that hits you before the plate even touches the table.

The French Connection's Second Home

When the Buffalo Sabres started playing in the early 1970s, Chef's became the team's unofficial gathering spot. But it was the French Connection — Gilbert Perreault, Rick Martin, and Rene Robert — who became family. Lou Sr. wasn't just feeding them. He was a father figure, an advisor, a steady presence. Lou Jr. remembers: "Back then there was always one of them in my dad's office asking for advice or just talking to him."

There's a story about Bruce Smith that captures who Lou Sr. was. A young boy asked Bruce for an autograph one day at Chef's, and Bruce — having a rough day after practice — refused. Lou got in his face: "How do you know that kid didn't have cancer?" Bruce apologized, signed the autograph, and told Lou he'd be at Chef's every Friday for the rest of his career. He kept that promise. His order never changed — half a loaf of Italian bread, a soup bowl of sauce for dipping, and an extra-large Spaghetti Parm.

When Lou Sr. passed away in 2000, the three members of the French Connection were in Western Canada doing a promotion. They dropped everything and came home. Today, the French Connection Room at Chef's is filled with rare memorabilia from those early Sabres years — a tribute to a friendship that went far deeper than hockey.

Like Father, Like Son. Like Father, Like Daughter.

Lou Billittier Jr. started working at Chef's at age 12 — as a dishwasher, just like his dad. His sister Mary Beth started as a busgirl. Both worked their way up through every job in the restaurant. When their mother Ann passed away, Lou Jr. and Mary Beth became co-owners, carrying forward everything their parents built.

They've expanded carefully over the decades — a second dining room in 1966, a banquet room called the LouAnn Room (named for their parents), a drive-up pickup window, a food truck, jarred sauce in grocery stores across the country, and even frozen entrees shipped nationwide. When the beloved Mangano's Bakery closed, Chef's bought their equipment and hired their baker Benny, building a bakery on-site so they could bake fresh bread every morning. That's the kind of move the Billittiers make — when something good in the community is about to disappear, they find a way to keep it alive.

Over 100 Years. Same Corner. Same Sauce.

Chef's celebrated its 100th anniversary in September 2023 with a documentary screening at the North Park Theatre. The walls are still covered with hundreds of photos — Bill Clinton, Keanu Reeves, Luke Bryan, Jerry Springer (who started the whole celebrity wall tradition as a joke in 1997). The red checkered tablecloths are still on every table. The sauce is still made from the same recipe. And at any given lunch, you might see the Governor at one table and a truck driver at the next. As Lou Jr. puts it: "It's a mix of everybody. It's not a high-end place, it's not a diner. It's everything."

From a 12-year-old dishwasher to a Buffalo institution that's outlasted City Hall, the Peace Bridge, and a century of change on Seneca Street — Chef's is what happens when a family just keeps showing up and doing it right.