Capriotti's founder Lois Margolet dies

Lois Margolet, the Wilmington native who launched the Capriotti's Sandwich Shop chain and invented Delaware's most iconic sandwich, the Bobbie, died from lung cancer at her home in Las Vegas early Thursday morning. She was 68.

"Capriotti's is an institution in Delaware and the cornerstone of so many communities here," said Carrie Leishman, president of the Delaware Restaurant Association. "It's incredible what she was able to achieve and I'm so sorry to hear of her passing." 

Cindy Cutler, Margolet's niece and manager of the Capriotti's on Basin Road near New Castle, called her aunt a "tremendously smart" businesswoman.

"She had an incredible drive and did everything possible to make her dream come true," she said. "But Lois the person was also the most generous and loving person you would ever want to meet."

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The Capriotti's founder was first diagnosed with lung cancer in October.

"It all happened so quickly," Cutler said.

Margolet was 28 in 1976 when she quit her job at Military Base Management to open the first Capriotti's Sandwich Shop at 510 N. Union St. in Wilmington, the same Little Italy neighborhood where she grew up. Margolet used a $13,000 bank loan to purchase the storefront, leaving exactly $2,743 to start a mom-and-pop sub shop, named after her grandfather Philip Capriotti.

"She opened at a time when women in business wasn't the norm," Cutler said. "Everybody told her she wouldn't survive."

Two weeks was all most people gave the new business, said Margolet's older sister Ann Gwinn.

Their mother talked her youngest child Alan into leaving his job at Rodel in Newark to help his older sister at the new shop.

"All the equipment she bought was used and she even borrowed from some of the local bookies get what she needed," Gwinn said. "All she wanted was her own business."

Capriotti's was not an immediate hit and Margolet often had to work side jobs – including waitressing in Atlantic City – just to keep it alive.

By 1987, cousin Diane Rizzo had been added as a partner and soon Capriotti's second and third locations opened in the New Castle and Newark areas. Other family members came aboard to open franchises, and gradually, almost unintentionally, Lois and Alan found themselves owners of a growing chain that began franchising in 1991.

The restaurants also were bolstered by the addition of the specialty sandwiches that would come to define Capriotti's, including the famed Bobbie made with pulled turkey, cranberry sauce, homemade stuffing and a schmear of mayonnaise. The dish was a recreation of a beloved sandwich served to them by their Aunt Bobbie.

"Her real name was Winona, but she hated that name," Alan Margolet jokingly told The News Journal in 2005.

Today, the Bobbie is almost synonymous with Delaware, at least to many natives.

"Every region has foods that it's known for," Leishman said. "Maryland has crabs, Philadelphia has the cheesesteak and Delaware has the Bobbie."

Gwinn said there was nothing like the now-iconic sandwich when Lois first came up with it.

"I guess imitation is the highest form of flattery because so many people have copied it," she said. "They don't call it the Bobbie, but it's everywhere now."

After expanding in Delaware, Lois began vacationing in Las Vegas, where she opened Nevada's first Capriotti's in 1993.

Less than a decade later, Capriotti's sold one of its Las Vegas franchises to Delaware native Ashley Morris, a Wells Fargo financial adviser, and his business partner Jason Smylie, a software engineer. Morris, Smylie and a group of investors then bought all of Capriotti's 45 restaurants from Margolet in 2008 – except for the Wilmington and New Castle stores. 

Today, the Capriotti's chain includes more than 100 locations in 18 states and the District of Columbia, where Vice President Joseph Biden has been known to eat since taking office.

"I think she was getting to a point where she was in her 60s and getting tired," Gwinn said of Lois's decision to sell all but the original stores.

"I know she was sorry as soon as she did it," she added. "As much as she loved the business, what she really cared about were the people. I think it's fair to say she was generous to a fault."

Lou Casapulla, whose father founded what became Casapulla's sub shop in Elsmere, described Margolet's death as "unbelievable."

"She was a great girl, a beautiful Jewish-Italian," he said. "She did a hell of a job building up that business, even before the Bobbie took them to the next level."

Despite being rivals, Casapulla said his family and Margolet always remained good friends.

"The only problem between us was that Capriotti's and Casapulla's almost sound the same," he said with a laugh. "What are you going to do?"

Governor-elect John Carney, a longtime customer of Capriotti's, also expressed his condolences.

"Lois was a friend to me and so many others," he said. "Capriotti's is so much more than a business – it's part of what Delaware is known for. Lois will be missed and we're thinking about her family during this difficult time."

The third of four siblings, Margolet never married and had no children.

"Her employees were her family," Cutler said. "She went above and beyond the call of any employer by paying for funerals and helping with the cost of child care. If anyone needed anything, Lois was not just there as an employer, she was there as a friend."

Cutler said her aunt wanted the two remaining family-owned locations in Delaware to continue the family-centered approach she so cherished.

"We hope to do our best to fulfill her wishes and maintain her legacy," she said.

No funeral arrangements had been made as of Thursday. Cutler said services will be held in Delaware.

Contact business reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.