Before gracing the front of canned foods – Ettore “Hector” Boiardi headed a kitchen at the prestigious Park Hotel in New York City and once catered a presidential wedding for Woodrow Wilson. In 1924, Bioardi moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he opened his own restaurant. His customers loved his signature spaghetti sauce so much – they began clamoring to make it themselves at home. So Bioardi created a do-it-yourself take-home spaghetti kit. Obviously, this took off like wildfire – or else we wouldn’t be seeing the chef’s likeness on cans of Mini-Ravioli. In 1928, Bioardi and his brothers (Brother Bioardis) opened a small processing plant and coined it the Chef Boiardi Food Company. One problem, his customers and salesmen couldn’t pronounce his name – so he went with the phonetic version. Said Bioardi: “Everyone is proud of his own family name but sacrifices were necessary for progress.” Chef Boiardi remained a consultant with the company until 1978 – and his chef-like face lives on forever on grocery and gas station food mart shelves.