Anthony Colacci, who died at age 88 on Sept. 30 in Louisville, owned and ran the eponymous Italian restaurant that he established two blocks away from his father’s celebrated Blue Parrot restaurant following a bitter fight that endured throughout his life.
Born June 28, 1918, to Italian immigrants Mary Ross and Michael Angelo Colacci, he learned the restaurant business at his father’s knee.
Mike Colacci opened the Blue Parrot a year after his son was born.
In 1946, when Anthony Colacci returned to Louisville from serving two years in the Army, he joined his father at the restaurant. Their relationship frayed, in part over tensions connected to Mike Colacci’s second marriage. One day in 1955, Anthony Colacci stormed out of his father’s restaurant, vowing to start his own.
He opened Colacci’s that year in a storefront at 816 Main St., just north of the Blue Parrot. He erected an enormous “Colacci’s” sign that hung over the sidewalk and became a local landmark.
Anthony Colacci’s brother, Joe, helped their father run the Blue Parrot and eventually took over the restaurant. The brothers maintained a visibly strained relationship, which provided fodder for Boulder County foodies fascinated by the ongoing feud.
“We haven’t been the closest of families,” acknowledged Anthony Colacci’s niece Joan, who is on the Blue Parrot side of the clan.
Though the Colacci family remained divided, its restaurants were celebrated for tomato sauce that was as addictive as the thick, chewy noodles. (“Pasta” was a phrase not yet in the local gastronomic lexicon.) The big platters and reasonable prices kept both institutions filled with families, hungry college students and gourmands who equally loved the food and the jaunty atmosphere.
In 1968, Anthony Colacci and his wife, the former Rita Cook, divorced. She assumed ownership of the Colacci’s restaurant. He then married Brenda Colacci, herself divorced from a Colacci relative on the estranged side of the large extended family. That marriage was dissolved in 1974.
Eventually, Anthony Colacci returned to the restaurant business. He and daughter Sally Colacci-Rickman owned the now-defunct Tony and Sal’s in Longmont.
The Colacci’s restaurant in Louisville continued to operate under that name, under different owners, until Pasquini’s Pizzeria bought the business in 2000.
Survivors include Joe Colacci, of Louisville; daughters Mary Guyer, Pattie Thompson and Sally Colacci-Rickman, all of Louisville, and Toni Musgrove of Parker; 16 grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
