Grateful thanks be recorded to Lorenzo Volante, grandson of Giuseppe (Joe) Volante and Filomena (Flo) Pagliari.
Lorenzo undertook the research and provided the core text and accompanying images for this long-standing, successful business.
He also provided the material for other parts of the Volante ’empire’, including
The Cafe Volante in Tain, his father’s business ;
The Spey Cafe in Grantown , run by Joe’s sister Anna and her husband Anthony (Tony) D’annunzio , and
Volante’s Fish and Chips in Newtonmore (run by Joe’s brother Alberto (Albert) and two sisters Serafina (Chrissy) and Elvira.
In the 1920s Bernardo Capaldi emigrated to Scotland from Picinisco in the Frosinone Province, (between Rome and Naples and near Monte Cassino). Settling in Kingussie, he established and ran a cafe and ice cream shop at the cross on the High Street.
In 1929 Bernardo bought a shop in Brora for his son Alfredo. The business remains in operation, and Capaldis ice cream is still sold in the village to this day.
A full full account of the Capaldis of Brora can be found in The Clyne Chronicle No. 21, pages 60-64
When Bernardo died on 1952 the Kingussie shop was run by his son Luigi until 1959.
In February of that year, it was sold to was sold to Giuseppe (Joe) Volante and his fiancee Filomena (Flo) Pagliari. The couple married in June 1959.
The Volante family came from the village of Villa Latina, also in Frosinone. They emigrated to Scotland after the second world war in the late 1940s. Flo and Joe took over Capaldi’s ice cream parlour in 1959 and developed it into a chip shop named Volante’s Cafe.
Volante’s Cafe was recognised as the first fish and chip shop between Inverness and Perth and became a veritable landmark in the town.
The Volantes sold their own home to live in the cafe premises. They made ice cream and had an ice cream van which travelled around the Cairngorm area.
In the 1980s, the shop name was updated to Cafe Volante to sound more modern.
Flo and Joe had two sons, Luigi (Louie) and Carlo.
In 1990, the Kingussie business was handed over to their younger son Carlo, while their elder son Louie established his own business in Tain which also traded under the Cafe Volante name.
Carlo ran the business with his wife Caroline before selling it in 2014.
It remained a chip shop and, as a tribute to Joe Volante, the new owners called it “Joe’s Chippy On The Corner”.
Joe died in 2006 and Flo in 2017.