Lodge and Legend • Volume 2 • Issue 2

The
Second
Time
Around
— M E E T —
A N G I E F I N A Z Z O
If you’ve been to an event at
Saskatoon recently, chances are
you’ve already met Angie Finazzo.
But if you’ve been around the
restaurant scene in Greenville for
any amount of time, there’s a high
likelihood that you’ve seen her
before that, as well.
Angie splits the Saskatoon Lodge Events duties
with Jane Hanna, who focuses on Rehearsal
Dinners and Weddings (more on Jane in a future
issue). Angie books the non-wedding related events
such as Corporate events, Celebrations of Life, as
well as the food for all of the events. Her husband,
Peter, is on Edmund’s de facto board; he was one
of those that helped Edmund decide on the site for
this new location and continues to be a sounding
board whenever Edmund runs into a challenge.
Before that, however, Angie was a longtime staple
in the Upstate culinary industry, with a story that
started way back in 1969, in a French restaurant in
Florida. “Our family was on vacation in Sarasota, and
my two little girls and I (Daddy Peter and Young Peter
were fishing) went into a little French restaurant for
lunch,” she recalls. “So I’m looking around and I said
to the girls, ‘I think I want to open a restaurant.’” As
small children often do, they spilled her musings to
their dad the first chance they got.
The family was already close to the industry—Angie’s
husband, Peter worked in corporate feeding and
healthcare as Director of Food Service for Anderson
Memorial Hospital. But while Angie wanted to open
a restaurant, it was a misdirected catering order that
led her into the business, when someone approached
Peter to do a wedding reception.
Angie Finazzo
With more than 18 months
& 150 events under her belt
as the Event Planner for
Saskatoon Lodge, Angie has
brought Saskatoon events to a
whole new level.
While Peter couldn’t take that job due to a conflict of
interest with his job at the hospital, Angie could, and
before she knew it she was making 800 eggrolls from
scratch in her own kitchen. Word quickly spread
in the small town of Anderson, and soon Angie
was made an offer she couldn’t refuse—to open a
restaurant in the Caldwell Johnson Morris House, an
historic property built in the mid-1800s. By the time
she opened her doors to customers on November 11,
1981, it was called the Morris Street Tea Room.
From there, the catering offers poured in—for
weddings, parties and Seders. As the business grew to
jobs that covered the likes of Michelin and other large
corporate clients, Angie’s reputation spread. “One
Pictured left: Peter Finazzo tending the fire for Saskatoon’s Oregon Salmon Bake