RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. — Back when she lived in Buenos Aires, Marisa Furno did not know she’d end up running a tiny deli in the United States. But today, Furno is the owner of Guido’s Italian Deli and Pizza, in an unassuming strip mall in Rancho Cucamonga. The only thing that gives away something special are the smells of Argentina, wafting into the parking lot.
How Furno came to be here was through a series of events, largely out of her control. For over 20 years in her native Buenos Aires, Furno worked in accounting. She felt called to switch careers and work in food, so she started a catering company on the side.
“One day I said, ‘why don’t I study the thing that I love the most,’” Furno said. “So I studied in the Gastronomic Institute of Buenos Aires.”
But as soon as she finished culinary school, Argentina’s economic crisis reached a nadir that Furno could no longer ignore. She and her family fled Argentina and landed in Rancho Cucamonga. Furno struck up a friendship with the old owner of Guido’s Italian Pizza and Deli, who by that point had stopped selling pizza completely.
Furno could see the old man was tired, so she made many attempts over the years to purchase the deli from him hoping she could recreate a bit of Argentina in her new home. But Guido kept declining, and eventually Furno gave up.
“So I moved with my family to Fontana. And one time, I don’t know, I came back to this area to go to an Argentinian business I knew of, and it was closed during the hours it was supposed to be open,” Furno said, getting animated. “And I was like ‘why God, why?’”
Furno tried one more time to persuade Guido to sell her the deli, and this time, he said yes. That was in 2014, and ever since, Furno and her family have transformed this deli into a little slice of Buenos Aires. A mainstay on Furno’s menu is pizza.
We think of pizza as Italian, but in Argentina, Italian immigrants brought with them all their staples, and Argentinians adopted them. So today, pizza is king in Argentina, and of them, the fugazetta reigns supreme.
It’s a pizza overstuffed with cheese and onions.
“It’s the smells, the smells! Smelling a fugazetta in the oven… it’s unmistakably Argentina,” said Furno.
As is, of course, empanadas: among the most famous Argentinian food exports, made with beef, chicken, pork, sweet corn and spinach. Furno and her children make them side by side, laughing and joking and singing while their practiced hands twist the dough into that classic shape.
Her employee, Luz Agüero, says it reminds her so much of being back home.
“The other day she was making one, and I ate it and I was like… it tastes just like the one that I was eating in Argentina. Like, I wanted to cry.”
Furno says that’s how she knows she’s doing it well.
“This is what I try to do here. To remember, in each thing I make, my dear Buenos Aires.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Luz Agüero as Marisa Furno’s daughter. The error has been corrected. (March 9, 2022)
