DiFebo's Restaurant brings its Italian staples to Berlin

The secret ingredient behind DiFebo's Restaurant is family. 

The Italian restaurant that began as a small deli is reaching 30 years in business and opened the doors of its newest eatery in Berlin in mid-November. Nestled on Main Street, the eatery brings the DiFebo's staples further down the Eastern Shore, with this being the family's first location in the Old Line State. 

While what's being prepared in the kitchen, especially Bob DiFebo's meatballs and red sauce, keeps customers coming back, Lisa DiFebo-Osias feels there's another piece contributing to her family's success: Love of entertaining. 

The restaurants are direct representations of the DiFebos' own homes during family events, with the kitchen full of homemade meals and the dining table packed with hungry guests.  

“I think part of our success wasn’t just about cooking, it’s the way that we all learned how to entertain and be hospitable and care for guests," Lisa explained. 

Humble beginnings 

While DiFebo's Restaurant wasn't established until the late 1980s, the story began long before that. 

Bob's parents emigrated from Italy, moving to Wilmington, Delaware, to begin their American dream. He learned from his mother to make his meatballs and red sauce, or as the DiFebo family calls it, gravy. 

“I always helped my mother," he said. 

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In 1962, Bob opened a pizza shop with a partner in Wilmington. This is where a young Lisa got her first taste of the restaurant business. 

"She ended up every day coming into the restaurant in the playpen, right in back of the counter, as we’re making pizzas, subs and things like that. She was right there,” Bob remembers. 

After the pizza shop dissolved and Lisa got older, she got the itch to open another restaurant, but this time, in Bethany Beach. Bob hesitated, suggesting starting with a sub shop instead of a full-service restaurant. 

"'You gotta walk before you run, baby,'" Lisa remembers her father telling her, affectionately impersonating his thick Italian accent.  

So Lisa converted a small beach house into a deli, serving up items such as  hoagies, but also Bob's meatballs and gravy. They'd experiment with the menu, offering up hearty breakfast and pasta dishes to customers, making the eatery stand out from the average deli. 

“We just kept expanding on different entrées," Lisa said. 

As Bethany Beach picked up as more of a destination spot and word got out about DiFebo's, the deli began to pick up a following.

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But Lisa wanted more. With the deli in the hands of her family, she attended culinary school in New York and met her now-husband, Jeff Osias. The two moved back to Bethany Beach together and in the 1990s, the original DiFebo's deli was torn down and rebuilt into the full-service restaurant it's known as today. 

In 2015, the family announced its expansion to Rehoboth Beach. 

The restaurant evolved into what it is today organically, Lisa said. With herself, Bob and Jeff at the helm, the three created a menu anchored in the family's Italian staples with a little bit of a twist.

But the crux to it all is two of the most original menu items. 

“The core has been that gravy and those meatballs," Lisa said. 

A passion for food 

The passion and expectation level for the food served at DiFebo's is set high. 

With an emphasis on fresh and local ingredients, the restaurant focuses on offering made-from-scratch dishes. And many times those items are made by hand.

DiFebo's changes its menu quarterly, Lisa said, but would never remove a staple item like the meatballs and gravy.

Many pasta dishes like the ravioli are made from scratch. Bob churns out about 80 gallons of gravy and 750 meatballs daily — all by hand, she said.

Any regular menu items and specials are created out of the freshest, local ingredients, Bob said. Serving dishes that are made from scratch is something DiFebo's boasts about, wanting to offer their customers the best. 

“To me that’s really important," Bob said. 

When it came down to opening a third location, choosing Main Street in Berlin was almost natural. 

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Lisa and Jeff's children have attended Worcester Preparatory School for about 15 years, so the family knew the area and were introduced to the building's owner by a mutual friend. But while the family knew the Berlin area, opening a restaurant location in the town has allowed them to get to really know the community, she said. 

The response DiFebo's has received has been incredible from fellow business owners and customers, Jeff said. Guests who know the DiFebo's name may have traveled to the Delaware locations previously and are now happy to have one closer to home in Maryland, he said.  

But he said there's no pressure felt to reinvent themselves or offer anything different. Instead, it's continuing to offer the authentic dishes and welcoming atmosphere that started it all.  

“I think we’re very passionate about food in general and it’s just what we do," Jeff said.   

If you go: 

What: DiFebo's Restaurant 

Where: 104 Main St. in Berlin, Maryland 

When: Monday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

Contact: 410-629-0550, website difebos.com

On Twitter: @The_MegRyan