Daily News Pays Tribute to Randazzo Owner

Denis Hamill, columnist for the Daily News, wrote an exceptional obituary last week honoring Jacqueline Randazzo Page, who died unexpectedly on August 13.

Here’s an excerpt, but we strongly recommend you read the entire article:

Even at her wake, she was a Brooklyn character.

Jackie Randazzo Page – the lady who ruled over Randazzo’s Clam Bar on Emmons Ave. in Sheepshead Bay like Queen Neptune – lay in repose in her coffin, a thin, almost sarcastic smile on her always-Fra Diablo lips, facing a life-size floral slot machine with three 7’s in the windows and a 6-foot floral arrangement of a bright red lobster like the neon one that has reflected from the storied eatery across the night waters of Sheepshead Bay for five decades.

“My mother was my business partner and my best buddy,” said Jackie’s son Paul Randazzo, 51, who stood in the rear of the Marine Park Funeral Home, bewildered like a fighter refusing to believe he’d just been KOd. “She was 69. And I mean a young 69! My mom was good for another 20 years, and so this hasn’t hit me yet.”

…

Paul says Jackie was a big softie. But she could also be tough.

“She had big Brooklyn b—s,” he says. “She’d fight anybody – girls, guys, me! She took s–t from nobody. She’d call me in the mornings if I overslept, cursing me out, ‘Get down to the store!’ She went through three husbands because she never let anybody get over on her. If you tried to get over on her, she’d roll on the sidewalk with you. If you were loyal to her, she’d die for you. The chef and staff at Randazzo’s are as upset as the family about my mom.”

…

In the end, Jacqueline Randazzo Page, who had a heart as big as Brooklyn, couldn’t stop the bleeding of her own heart.

“The thing I’ll miss most is her calling me in the morning and screaming for me to get down to Randazzo’s,” says Paul. “Which is what I’ll be doing alone now. But as long as Randazzo’s is open for business on Emmons Ave., my mother will still be alive and kickin’ in Brooklyn.”