Berwyn battalion chief finds success in the kitchen

Mario Manfredini may be one of the more diverse firefighters you’ll ever meet.

His job has him investigating the cause of fires as Berwyn’s fire marshal. He is a battalion chief, too, directing firefighters as they battle blazes.

And in his spare time, Manfredini is busy preparing what has become a wildly popular brand of pasta sauces. The jars read “Recipes from the Firehouse” with the slogan “from our house to yours.”

Calling himself “a Berwyn lifer,” Manfredini, 54, has been a firefighter in his hometown for half his life.

He’s been a battalion chief for 12 years after first serving as a firefighter and then a lieutenant.

Manfredini has been Berwyn fire marshal for the past 10 years, investigating the cause of fires. He also inspects fire prevention systems such as sprinklers in new construction.

“The fire will tell a story,” Manfredini said. “It will get you to where it started. You look at the smoke, the way it burns.

“Take a wall, per se, it will be white where it burned heavy. That kind of gives you directions.”

Despite the dangers of fighting fires, Manfredini called it “the best job in the world.”

“I love it. It’s not something I dread coming to work every day,” Manfredini said.

His original plan was to fight crime. When he was in his 20s, he took criminal justice classes, hoping to become a police officer.

“I was taking police tests every year,” he said. “On the off year, they give the fire test. My brother [a police officer] said, ‘Take the fire test.’ I thank him every day.”

He was called in 1996 by the Berwyn Fire Department. The rest is history. His office is at the firehouse at 6615 W. 16th St.

It’s not an easy job, given what he has seen over the years.

“There’s that saying, ‘I wish my mind could forget some of the things my eyes saw.’ I’ve seen some crappy things along the way. Little kids dying,” Manfredini said.

Thankfully, that’s not been a frequent occurrence.

He enjoys how the job is different every day. He never knows what to expect.

“Just before you got here,” he told a reporter, “I installed a baby seat in a car for a woman who is expecting this week.”

With his busy job, Manfredini never expected he’d have a side career preparing and selling pasta sauce.

But, in a way, the fire department job led him to the kitchen.

Manfredini fondly recalls watching his grandmother and his mother Irma cooking at home for his “close-knit Italian family.”

“Something was always on the stove at someone’s house. Always fresh ingredients,” he said.

That’s why he was appalled one day at the firehouse when he learned that a fellow firefighter planned to use store-bought pasta sauce for a meal served to the firefighters.

Firefighters are on duty 24 hours and then off for 48 hours. So they need to be fed while on duty.

“One of the guys was making lasagna. He went and bought some jarred sauce. I was like, ‘What the [heck] are you doing?’ That’s a no-no in our family.”

Manfredini took over cooking that day and won rave reviews.

His fellow firefighters liked his cooking. He became one of the better firehouse cooks on his shift.

Manfredini also is a commissioner on the Berwyn Park District board, which sponsored a pasta dinner every year.

When he first joined the board, he said he was floored to learn the previous year’s dinner lost $3,000.

“How do you lose money selling spaghetti?” Manfredini said. “Well, they had a restaurant do the cooking, didn’t have enough people to attend. ... I said, ‘Let me do the cooking this year.’ The first year I did, we made about $3,000.

“We kicked it up a little bit. Got a band. We ended up making $10,000 a year doing it. Since COVID-19, we haven’t done it.”

As word spread around Berwyn about his sauce, he decided to take the plunge.

He began jarring his pasta sauces, selling them at farmers markets, select stores and online.

Some of the local stores that carry it include Avito Caffe and Tony’s Fresh Market in Berwyn, Lacquered Up Nail Spa in Oakbrook Terrace and Riverside Foods in Riverside.

You can find him selling pasta sauce at the Downers Grove farmers market each Saturday from May through October.

You can visit www.MariosMarinara.com to learn more about his sauces.

Manfredini has been featured on local TV shows such as “Windy City Live” and he’s cooked for the WGN Morning News crew.

There’s even a Mario’s Marinara page on Facebook.

He sells sauces for $8 to $12 a jar.

He started with basic marinara sauce and now offers vodka sauce and a spicy arrabbiata sauce. He even sells giardinera.

A portion of the proceeds go to charities that focus on first responders, burn camps and other fire-related philanthropic organizations.

Manfredini makes his pasta sauces on weekends at a factory in Oak Forest, paying close attention to the ingredients and taste.

“I’d love to [take it national],” he said. “Maybe in retirement.”

That could be as soon as three years.

“I’d like to get my 30 [years] and go,” he said.

And if the pasta sauce company comes to an end?

“I can say I had a good run. It was fun,” he said. “Met a lot of great people along the way.”

Manfredini and his wife, Yolanda, live in Berwyn. They have one daughter and one granddaughter.

And, yes, in case you were wondering, he is related to home repair expert Lou Manfredini of WGN Radio (720 AM).

“His dad and my dad are cousins. I don’t get any free [home repair] work done. I may see him at a funeral or a wedding,” Manfredini said with a laugh.