Inside Corti Brothers, home to a ravioli machine that makes 7,000 boxes a month
The East Sacramento grocer's 1970s ravioli machine still runs daily — and the kitchen staff has strong feelings about it.
Deep in the back of Corti Brothers in East Sacramento sits a 27-by-3.5-foot ravioli machine, installed in the 1970s to replace one dating back to the 1920s. When the cheese filling hopper runs low, it sounds an alarm loud enough to be mistaken for a fire alert.
The machine turns out 2,400 boxes of ravioli a month in normal times, climbing to 7,000 during the holidays. Kitchen manager Andrew Cordero, who's added spinach-ricotta, chicken and pancetta, and mushroom varieties to the original beef and cheese, has joked that he wants to be buried with the machine when he goes.
Corti Brothers is one of a handful of Sacramento specialty food producers — alongside candy maker Kobasic's and others — that Comstock's magazine has profiled as proof that old-school, small-batch food production still has a place in the Capital Region's grocery scene.