Louis Augustin Cannizzaro
Times Picayune 12-30-1996

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Louis Augustin Cannizzaro, a New Orleans businessman who built a one-man
operation into one of Louisiana's largest family-owned specialty food
distribution companies, died Sunday of cancer at his home. He was 70.

Mr. Cannizzaro, the founder and president of Cannizzaro's Distributing Co.,
was a fixture for 50 years in the local grocery industry, where his imposing
figure earned him the nickname "Big Lou."

After serving in the Navy during World War II, he came home and took a job as
a truck driver for the now-defunct Wholesale Market company.

Over the next 25 years, Mr. Cannizzaro worked his way up the ladder as a
salesman, supervisor and sales manager before he was forced to leave the
company in 1970 after a series of cost-cutting moves.

After the shock wore off, family and friends encouraged him to strike out on
his own. He sold the family car and bought a van to deliver products stored in
a cinder-block garage at his home.

Relying on many of the contacts he had made as a salesman, Mr. Cannizzaro
steadily expanded the business over the next decade. In 1979, he moved the
company to its current location, a 65,000-square-foot distribution center on
Michoud Boulevard in eastern New Orleans.

The company, which now has 85 employees, services small groceries and
supermarkets in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas and Alabama. Its
product line, which now includes non-food items, ranges from diet foods to
flavored olive oils to potpourri.

Mr. Cannizzaro served on the board of directors of both the National Food
Distributors Association and the Southwest Food Distributors Association.

Business, however, wasn't his whole life: he loved to dine at fine
restaurants, travel abroad and was passionate about Carnival. "He lived to
parade," a relative said.

A charter member of the Krewe of Endymion, the city's largest parading
organization, he served on the krewe's board of directors and spent countless
hours attending to details of the annual roll from City Park to the Superdome.

In fact, his love of costuming and Carnival crowds was so intense that one
ride wasn't enough. He also joined the eastern New Orleans Krewe of
Pontchartrain, sat on its board and reigned as its king in 1989.

A native of New Orleans, Mr. Cannizzaro attended St. Mary's Italian Elementary
School in the French Quarter and S.J. Peters High School.

Survivors include his wife, Leatrice Gavin Cannizzaro; three sons, Gregory,
Salvatore and Rosario; a brother, Frank Cannizzaro; three sisters, Mary Rose
Cannizzaro, Angelina Donze and Phyllis Holt of Belton, Mo.; and five
grandchildren.

A wake will be held today at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100
Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will begin at 6 p.m. A Mass will be said
Tuesday at 10 a.m. at Lake Lawn. Burial will follow.