Episode 87: Pete’s Place — Little Italy in Oklahoma

Before there was a restaurant, there were coal mines.

In the early 1900s, Italian immigrants from southern Italy and Sicily settled in southeastern Oklahoma, building a tight-knit community rooted in family, food, faith — and hard work. In the small town of Krebs, Oklahoma, one young immigrant named Pietro Piegare followed his father into the mines at just eleven years old.

But a mining accident would change his life forever.

After crushing his leg in a cave-in, Pete reinvented himself — first by brewing a unique wheat beer inspired by the Choctaw people, and then by cooking heaping plates of spaghetti and ravioli for his fellow miners. What began as friends stopping by for “some of that stringy stuff” and a cold Choc beer would eventually become one of Oklahoma’s most beloved Italian restaurants: Pete’s Place.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Italian coal mining communities of Krebs and Pittsburg, Oklahoma

• Oklahoma’s 52-year prohibition era

• Basement brewing and jail time

• A 1950s automatic spaghetti fork invention (yes, really)

• The Italian ambassador’s visit to Krebs

• Two sons who served in WWII — one wounded in Italy and awarded a Purple Heart

• And the lasting legacy of a red sauce joint that still thrives nearly 100 years later

From Campania, Italy to Little Italy of Oklahoma, this is the story of Pete Prichard, Choc Beer, and the rambling old house hidden by trees that became a cornerstone of Italian American life in Krebs.