Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

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StoreLiker2006
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Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

Post by StoreLiker2006 »

Does anyone remember Mario and Luigi's, a pizzeria in Redmond, WA? It was the inspiration behind the name Luigi, a Nintendo video game character who made his debut in the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros.

In other words, does M & L's still exist? Regardless, I would like to see pictures of it, please.

Thank you,
Ben
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Brian Lutz
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Re: Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

Post by Brian Lutz »

I live in Redmond, and I have never heard of such a place (I have lived here since 1995.) I have also done some digging through the local microfilmed newspapers from 1977, and saw no mention of such a place either. The Wikipedia article for Mario says that name came from the landlord of the Nintendo of America offices at the time, although the article for Luigi does retell that particular story. Elsewhere on the Internet, it is suggested that there may be alternative explanations though.

Given the fact that Redmond was a pretty small town at the time, there's a good chance that something on this exists in the local newspapers for the place (This would have to be from around 1983, since that's when Mario Bros. came out.) I'll have to see what I can dig up.
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Brian Lutz
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Re: Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

Post by Brian Lutz »

I took a trip over to the library this afternoon to see if I could find anything, but unfortunately I drew a complete blank. The library has phonebooks back to abouit 1989 or so, and there was no place by that name at that point, and the newspaper archive doesn't have anything between 1977-1988 for the Redmond paper. This isn't to say that the place didn't exist, just that I haven't been able to find any evidence of it yet. I'll have to check with the historical society to see if they've got anything (if nothing else, they've got more extensive newspaper archives.)
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TenPoundHammer
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Re: Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

Post by TenPoundHammer »

StoreLiker2006 wrote:Does anyone remember Mario and Luigi's, a pizzeria in Redmond, WA? It was the inspiration behind the name Luigi, a Nintendo video game character who made his debut in the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros.
Did they serve pizza with 1-UP mushrooms on it?
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Re: Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

Post by TheQuestioner »

Perhaps there was a pizzeria by that name in Redmond after Mario Bros. came out. I have heard the "Mario as grouchy landlord" story numerous places over the years, so unless it is a piece of invented "Nintendo Lore" I tend to believe it as the origin of the character's name. It makes sense, especially in the less "intellectual-property-aware" days of the early 80's, that someone local would think it was cool to name their place after the hometown videogame heroes. If so, it probably didn't take Nintendo long to serve papers to them and likely scare them into changing the name or shutting down. That, or they already existed and the coincidence of the already-existing Mario being paired with another Italian name inspired them to name the new brother after the pizzeria. The only people likely to be able to answer this would be old-timer techies who lived and worked in the area in the early-to-mid eighties.
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Brian Lutz
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Re: Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

Post by Brian Lutz »

TheQuestioner wrote:Perhaps there was a pizzeria by that name in Redmond after Mario Bros. came out. I have heard the "Mario as grouchy landlord" story numerous places over the years, so unless it is a piece of invented "Nintendo Lore" I tend to believe it as the origin of the character's name. It makes sense, especially in the less "intellectual-property-aware" days of the early 80's, that someone local would think it was cool to name their place after the hometown videogame heroes. If so, it probably didn't take Nintendo long to serve papers to them and likely scare them into changing the name or shutting down. That, or they already existed and the coincidence of the already-existing Mario being paired with another Italian name inspired them to name the new brother after the pizzeria. The only people likely to be able to answer this would be old-timer techies who lived and worked in the area in the early-to-mid eighties.
Well, so far I have yet to even determine if a pizzeria with that name even existed in Redmond. As far as I have been able to determine, Nintendo of America had their offices in New York when Donkey Kong (and the character of Mario) was being developed in 1981, and did not move to Redmond until 1982. The character of Luigi was not created until Mario Bros. was released in 1983 (and the characters did not really become all that notable until Super Mario Bros. was created in 1985.) This leaves plenty of possibility that a Mario and Luigi's Pizza could have existed in Redmond before Nintendo moved here.

As I said, I have yet to establish anything, but if a place by that name existed, evidence of it shouldn't be too hard to find.
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Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria in NE Wisconsin

Post by working »

I seen a Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria just North of Peshtigo Wisconsin on U.S. - 41.

In fact if I remember correctly I seen at least two in this general area.

This was as of last Summer - 2008. Peshtigo is South Marinette Wisconsin and

just North of Green Bay.
dwee
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Re: Mario and Luigi's Pizzeria

Post by dwee »

About 12 years ago when my daughter was in elementary school, she took the initiative to email Nintendo's first landlord in Redmond to ask if the rumor that Mario was named after him was true. She was working on a project about the game for school.

Surprisingly, she received a reply from the owner's son who said his father didn't come into the office much any more, but that indeed it was true that Mario was named after his dad, and added a little known nugget that Luigi was named after his grandfather. She was delighted getting a reply, not knowing who she was actually emailing, and got an A on the project by the way, We haven't researched it, but have no reason to doubt the authenticity. It's nice that he took the time to reply to a little girl, and I was amazed it actually made it to his desk,
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