Vincent DeDomenico, an icon of the pasta industry who was instrumental in his family-run company's creation of Rice-A-Roni, the legendary "San Francisco treat," has died. He was 92.
DeDomenico, who later built and operated the Napa Valley Wine Train, died Thursday in his sleep at his home in Napa, Calif., said his daughter, Marla Bleecher.
He had not been ill and had been working in his office at the train station in Napa the night before he died.
"He was a warm, fun guy, somebody who liked a good time but whose work was his life," Bleecher said. "For him, work and play were all the same thing."
The son of Italian immigrants who owned a family pasta company originally called Gragnano Macaroni Factory and renamed the Golden Grain Macaroni Co., DeDomenico, along with his brothers Tom and Paskey, took over the business shortly before their father died in 1943.
In the late 1950s, DeDomenico began working on the idea of packaging dry rice and vermicelli with seasonings in one package to be sold in grocery stores and launched Rice-A-Roni.
Rice-A-Roni quickly became associated with the City by the Bay, thanks to the company's national commercials featuring cable cars and the catchy jingle: "Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat; Rice-A-Roni, the flavor can't be beat."
"My dad was insistent on a jingle that people would remember," Bleecher said. "That's what made it successful."
DeDomenico and his brothers bought the Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. in 1964 and soon added the main Ghirardelli plant onto the Golden Grain factory in San Leandro.
The innovative DeDomenico helped develop microwave machines to dry pasta in the '70s.
In 1986, the family sold its various companies to Quaker Oats for a reported $300 million.
But after five decades in the pasta business, DeDomenico had no intention of retiring.
"I thought, 'What am I going to do now? I like to keep busy. I'm not a golfer," he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002. "I heard someone up here had an idea for a wine train. I came up to check it out. I was looking for a fun, new thing."
DeDomenico spent millions buying and restoring vintage rail cars and repairing the railroad's ties, trestles and bridges and creating new depots at Napa and Yountville.
Despite opposition from vintners and landowners, he launched year-round daily dining excursions between Napa and St. Helena in 1989.
