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Nothing bonds generations of D’Ambrosio family members together like fresh, homemade sausages. Preparing and cooking the meat is more than just a mealtime activity: it symbolizes the family’s Italian heritage, passion for food and love for the Bay Area.
Each week, the D’Ambrosio’s Sunnyvale-based company, New York Style Sausage Company, pumps out 200,000 pounds of sausages for locals to purchase at stores like Grocery Outlet, Walmart, Safeway and Costco.
Family patriarch Frank D’Ambrosio had the idea for the business, which first began in a Palo Alto garage in 1951. These days, his descendants manage the company, which is now the largest manufacturer of fresh Italian sausage on the West Coast.
“I’m honored to continue the legacy of the company,” said Mike D’Ambrosio, Frank’s grandson and current CEO of the company. “We started from nothing. It’s your true American success story.”
The company rolls out unique flavors infused with combinations like garlic and basil or cheese and fine wine. Classic Italian sausages, breakfast pork sausages, ground meat and bratwurst are also available, alongside ravioli with meat and vegetarian options.
The sausages are always made fresh at the Reamwood Avenue facility and are never frozen, said Pasquale Bitonti, vice president of the company. At the top of each product is a label that reads, “No Preservatives. No MSG. Made in California.”
“It’s fresh in, and fresh out,” Bitonti said.
The company’s origins stemmed from an argument that took place between Frank D’Ambrosio and his wife, Tina, back in the ‘50s. The Connecticut natives had moved their family across the country to Palo Alto and quickly fell in love with the California sunshine, people and city life. But what they didn’t love was how difficult it was to find fresh quality meats at local markets, a task that was easy on the East Coast.
Good meats were essential for the family’s favorite Italian dinners prepared by Tina. One day, Frank told Tina he was fed up with her buying lackluster meats and making subpar sausages. “Why don’t you make your own?” Tina jabbed back.
So he did. Using his hands and a simple meat grinder, Frank made the first sausages right out of the family’s garage. He then brought the finished product to local restaurants and pizzerias.
“They asked him, ‘What kind of sausage is it?’” Mike said. “(Frank) said it’s a ‘New York style.’”
Heartened by the positive feedback he got from the community, Frank continued to build the business. He purchased some proper sausage-making machinery and recruited the couple’s four sons to make up a modest labor force. His son took the reins in 1971 and moved the company to its current Sunnyvale location.
“It doesn’t look like a typical manufacturing building,” Bitonti said, referring to the building’s red-tiled roofs and white exterior complete with dark green canopies. “But this is where we started and where we’re going to keep it going for a while.”
Bitonti was only 8 years old when he stumbled into the sausage business with Frank and Tina, who are cousins of his family. He took on internal roles as a sweeper, sausage maker, sanitation worker and delivery driver. After decades of dedication, he became vice president of the company.
Over the years, the company has formed long-standing relationships with the stores that sell their sausages, and even the customers who purchase them.
“We’ve been with other companies and customers for many years and still going,” Bitonti said. “That kind of tells me we’re doing something right.”
Sunnyvale is known for housing tech titans like Google, Apple and Amazon and boasts some of the priciest real estate in the region. Food manufacturing businesses stick out like a sore thumb, but Mike said that’s what makes New York Style Sausage unique. In March, the company won the Mid-Sized Business of the Year award from the city for being an “outstanding” business.
“I like to say we’re making sausage in the middle of microchips,” Mike said.
The D’Ambrosio family name isn’t just associated with sausages. It’s now synonymous with several organizations, including a local restaurant chain, a real estate company, a foundation and even an assisted living facility.
The family operates the local chain restaurant Giorgio’s Italian Grill & Pizzeria, formerly named Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too!. There are locations in Mountain View, Milpitas, San Jose and Morgan Hill.
In 1959, several years after the sausage argument turned epiphany, Frank, Tina and friends Mario and Enza Volpe opened the original Giorgio’s restaurant in San Jose, which was named after an old friend of theirs.
A year later, cousins of the D’Ambrosio family took over the restaurant, operating Giorgio’s for the next eight years. In 1968, Frank and Tina’s four sons purchased the restaurant back and have kept it in their family ever since, using New York Style Sausage in dishes like the restaurant’s Italian sausage burger.
Outside of the food industry, the D’Ambrosio family owns and funded Mountain View’s Villa Toscana Memory Care. The assisted living facility opened in April 2024 along El Camino Real, right below Giorgio’s Mountain View location.
Through the D’Ambrosio Family Foundation, the family is also raising awareness and funding for community endeavors. In August, the foundation held its 11th annual D’Ambrosio Family Foundation Golf Tournament in San Jose. All of the proceeds from the tournament went directly to Archbishop Mitty High School, Max Rhymes Foundation and Intero Foundation.
“This area supported us and we want to support it back,” Mike said. “That’s very important to myself and my family.”
For more information about New York Style Sausage Company and to access a store finder for products, visit newyorkstylesausage.com.
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