This flavorful sandwich is a product of the rich Italian heritage of the Mountain State.
Photo Above: The Giovanni is an Italian-American creation born in West Virginia.
Photos Courtesy of Fred Sauceman.
In 2008, we set out to track the West Virginia pepperoni roll, visiting bakeries that specialize in this Italian-American creation. And we happened upon a delightful surprise.
On that trip, we heard stories of immigrants arriving from Italy with only some pocket change and ambitious dreams of business ventures in the early 20th century. We heard stories of federal government interference that almost resulted in the extinction of the pepperoni roll when the United States Department of Agriculture attempted to reclassify Italian bakeries in the Mountain State as meatpackers. We heard stories of bakeries being cleaned out after Mass on Sunday by patrons who took pepperoni rolls home for family gatherings every week.
Pepperoni rolls are literally everywhere in West Virginia, from the front counters of Sheetz markets to the aisles of Walmart to the shelves of storied bakeries that have survived for well over 100 years. In fact, pepperoni rolls are now the official state food of West Virginia. And they aren’t just a food fad. They mean something. This handheld snack encapsulates the history of Italian immigration and its relationship to the mining of coal and the production of glass.
When Carmen Antonio “Tony” Tomaro arrived in West Virginia from Italy shortly after 1900, with his pockets practically empty, he was looking for a way to remember his homeland. In 1914, he opened Tomaro’s Bakery in Clarksburg, supplying bread for the Italian families of the region. That bread eventually became a sort of casing, enveloping pepperoni sausage and sometimes even cheese. His product packed nourishment in a convenient form that would fit easily into miners’ lunch pails. It could be eaten with one hand without the necessity of a knife and fork. It lasted for several days. And, perhaps most important of all, it spoke of Italy.
On the pepperoni roll trail that day, we met John Brunett and his mother Janice. At the time, John was the fourth-generation owner of Tomaro’s, the state’s oldest Italian bread bakery. As he was relating the fascinating story of his family’s business, he stopped to point out a pan of what he called “Giovanni bread.”
“Wait,” we said. “What is Giovanni bread?”
His answer set us off on another tasty West Virginia tangent. Giovanni bread, John explained, is a type of Texas toast — a pan loaf — which functions as the top and the bottom of a burger. Like the pepperoni roll, the Giovanni is a symbol of the intersection of Italian and American food traditions. In short, it’s a hamburger topped with cheese and roasted peppers in a red sauce. Oftentimes the bread is brushed with garlic butter.
Just as there are various approaches to pepperoni roll construction, such as the use of pepperoni rounds at some places and sticks at others, there are also different ways to assemble a Giovanni. Some sandwich makers insist on provolone cheese while others opt for American.
Where and when the first West Virginia Giovanni was created is impossible for us to say. In fact, there is still debate about exactly who created the pepperoni roll — a debate that we weren’t able to settle definitively during that 2008 road trip.
What we can say, though, is that the Giovanni’s place in West Virginia culinary history was assured through another Italian-owned company in Clarksburg. In the 1930s, in the back of the family grocery store, Antoinette Oliverio perfected her recipe for peppers in Italian sauce. In 1972, using her recipes, her son Frank began canning her product under the name Oliverio Italian Style Peppers. That business is now in its third generation. Giovanni purists insist on Oliverio peppers for their sandwiches.
And in 2022, when John and Janice decided to retire from baking, they sold Clarksburg’s Tomaro’s to the Oliverio family. (Janice Sparacino Brunett died in 2024 at the age of 83.)
Across town, the Giovanni is a popular menu item at the Ritzy Lunch, which opened in 1933, right around the time Antoinette Oliverio was roasting her first peppers.
Half an hour away, in Fairmont, a Giovanni at Colasessano’s is described as “our fresh toasted round bun with a grilled ground steak patty topped with provolone [and] mild, mixed, hot or banana peppers.” Colasessano’s is one of the state’s best-known pepperoni roll restaurants, although they’re known there as pepperoni “buns.” Started by Filippo and Filomena Colasessano in 1950, the place has been a company store, a bar and an Italian bakery and is now run by a former coal miner, John Menas, who is Croatian.
Like the pepperoni roll, the Giovanni is a symbol of both adaptation and cultural preservation, and further proof of our assertion that if you want good Italian food in America, go to West Virginia.
Fred and Jill Sauceman study and celebrate the foodways of Appalachia and the South from their home base in Johnson City, Tennessee.
The story above first appeared in our March / April 2026 issue.
