{"id":2682,"date":"2013-01-25T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T05:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archives.nd.edu\/about\/news\/?p=2682"},"modified":"2013-01-25T00:00:26","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T05:00:26","slug":"sunny-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/sunny-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunny Italy Cafe"},"content":{"rendered":" <\/a>
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“You can’t call yourself a true son of Notre Dame, unless you’ve hopped off the bus at the end of South Bend Ave. on a freezing\u00a0 winter night, made your way across Hill Street to the shadowy, little alley that leads down over sand and snow to Niles Avenue, and finally found yourself at the friendly doors of the Sunny Italy Cafe \u2014 known more affectionately to the student trade as Rosie’s.”
\nScholastic<\/em>, 10\/15\/1948, page 18<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sunny Italy Cafe<\/a> at 601 North Niles Avenue in South Bend was originally called the North Niles Avenue Cafe when it opened in 1926.\u00a0 Two Notre Dame students found the hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant in the early 1930s, became regulars, and befriended the owners Tony and Rosie Vumbaca.\u00a0 The students nicknamed the place “Rosie’s” and spread the word to their friends.\u00a0 Before long, Rosie’s was the <\/em>place to be on Friday and Saturday nights.\u00a0 By the 1940s, between 100-500 Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s students would dine at Rosie’s on Friday night.<\/p>\n

\"People
The crowd at Sunny Italy Cafe, 1946.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jimmy and Josie Bamber bought Rosie’s in 1940.\u00a0 While they renamed it Sunny Italy Cafe, the nickname “Rosie’s” stuck with the students, faculty, and alumni for decades to come.\u00a0 The popularity of the restaurant enabled the Bambers to renovate their restaurant in 1947, expanding the dining room to seat 150 customers.\u00a0 They catered to the Notre Dame students, staying open late on movie nights and offering lunch and dinner specials (65\u00a2 and 85\u00a2, respectively in 1948).<\/p>\n

\"The
The typical long lines to get a table at Sunny Italy Cafe, 1948.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An obvious choice for Italian Club meetings, Sunny Italy also hosted many other student organization meetings and banquets.\u00a0 In 1955, the Academy of Political Science sponsored a banquet with Paul Butler, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as speaker.\u00a0 In 1961, Republican Congressman Melvin E. Laird of Marshfield, Wisconsin, spoke at the Young Republican Spring Banquet.<\/p>\n

\"People
The packed dining room at Sunny Italy Cafe, 1948.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1976, Scholastic<\/em> reported that Notre Dame students made up 40% of Sunny Italy’s business.\u00a0 However, by this time, the tradition of students going to Rosie’s en masse began to wane.\u00a0 Today, Sunny Italy is still in its same location on Niles Avenue and is run by the same family all these years later.<\/p>\n

\"Kitchen
Kitchen staff and waitresses at Sunny Italy Cafe, 1948.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dome<\/a>
Dome yearbook 1941: Feature on a typical Friday night at Rosie’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nSources<\/em>:Scholastic<\/em>
\nDome<\/em> yearbook
\nSunny Italy Cafe: About Us<\/a><\/p>\n

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“You can’t call yourself a true son of Notre Dame, unless you’ve hopped off the bus at the end of South Bend Ave. on a freezing\u00a0 winter night, made your way across Hill Street to the shadowy, little alley that leads down over sand and snow to Niles Avenue, and finally found yourself at the … Continue reading “Sunny Italy Cafe”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"author":4370,"featured_media":2877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[74,78],"class_list":["post-2682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nd-history","tag-student-life","tag-traditions"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 00:59:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}