Providence’s Culinary Underbelly
For culinary and true crime fans, take the Providence Tour Company’s Crime and Cuisine on Federal Hill tour.
Venda Ravioli is a stop on the Crime and Cuisine tour on Federal Hill. Courtesy of PVD Tours.
You can now explore the seamier — and saucier — side of Providence and the legacy of the RISDIC scandal, mob bosses and the Buddy Cianci era with Providence Tour Company’s Crime and Cuisine on Federal Hill tour. The tour winds through the neighborhood with several historical and tasty stops along the way, packed with tidbits about the area’s legacy as a haven for the Italian-American community and as ground zero for the machinations of the Patriarca crime family.
The tour is an offshoot of the company’s first tour, called Welcome to Providence. It was interesting enough — offering guests an overview of the capital city, from Roger Williams to present-day happenings — but only tourists were taking it, says Bradly VanDerStad, Providence Tour Company’s founder.
In brainstorming ways to improve the tour, VanDerStad kept coming back to Providence’s history with organized crime.
“People are just allured by true crime — it’s a very successful form of literature,” he says. “I thought, what a great way to turn something that was historically a liability for Providence tourism — now its legacy — into a tourism driver.”
Photo courtesy of Laura Afonso of
@bunsandbites
The tour leaves from La Pigna, the pine cone arch at the beginning of Atwells Avenue. (Fun fact: Although it seems like it’s been there for ages, the arch was dedicated during Cianci’s first run as mayor in 1981.) In between lore dropped by knowledgeable tour guides, guests stop into Venda Ravioli for savory Italian nibbles and gaze at the old Coin-O-Matic building where Raymond Patriarca, ahem, conducted business. A visit to Napolitano’s Brooklyn Pizza for authentic thin-crust pie is juxtaposed with a stroll to the old Heritage Loan & Investment bank, where former president Joe Mollicone launched the state’s credit union crisis after embezzling $15 million and fleeing to Utah.
The tour is by far the company’s most popular, VanDerStad says, and 40 percent of tourgoers are Rhode Island residents. Now in its third season, the newly expanded tour will run on weekdays and six times on Saturdays and Sundays during the summer. Tours run through December.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli, indeed.
Providence Tour Company, 405-6608, pvdtourco.com
