Dave Cossetta

Dave Cossetta died unexpectedly in Rome on Thursday 12 November 2026, aged 70. He had travelled to Italy with members of his team for the Coppa del Mondo del Panettone in Milan, where Cossetta's had won two awards a few days earlier. A family spokesperson announced the death, saying he died surrounded by his wife, Gail, his team and many friends and family.

The family did not give a cause of death. WCCO Radio host Jason DeRusha reported that, according to several sources close to the family, he died of a sudden medical event, and one source said he had been on his way to deliver a panettone to the Pope. The family said service details would be shared when available and that the business would carry on "as Dave would have wanted: together, around the table." The news was reported across Twin Cities media, including the Star Tribune, MPR News, KARE 11, KSTP, FOX 9 and WCCO.

David Cossetta grew up in a St. Paul family whose name had been attached to an Italian grocery since 1911. The business was founded by Michael Cossetta, who came to St. Paul from Calabria in the late nineteenth century and settled in the Upper Levee, the city's small Italian neighbourhood beside the Mississippi, sometimes called Little Italy. The Star Tribune described the founder as Dave's great-grandfather, and Dave as the fourth generation to run the business.

Before taking over the family store, Cossetta trained and worked as a meat cutter, a trade that later shaped the market's butcher counter and its well known handmade sausage.

Cossetta took over the family market in 1978, at the age of 21. In the 1980s the family began making pizza, expanded the Italian grocery and moved the business to West Seventh Street, near the St. Paul Civic Center. He invested heavily in the new location, telling the Star Tribune at the time, "I'm taking a huge risk trying to do something good here."

Under his ownership Cossetta's became one of St. Paul's busiest eateries, a cafeteria style pizzeria and Italian kitchen known for its pizza, mostaccioli con ricotta and sausage, alongside a market selling imported Italian groceries, deli meats and fresh bread baked on site. Its position near downtown, United Hospital and later the Xcel Energy Center brought it a constant stream of new customers.

After the business's centenary, Cossetta led a top to bottom remake costing about ten million dollars, with two million dollars contributed by the City of St. Paul. Completed in 2012 and 2013, it roughly tripled the market's floor space and added Louis Ristorante, a sit down restaurant upstairs, a pastry shop designed and built in Italy and reassembled in St. Paul by Italian craftsmen, and a rooftop terrace. He renamed the business Cossetta Alimentari to mark the change.

In later years Cossetta devoted himself to panettone, which he worked on for more than fifteen years and hoped would carry the Cossetta name to customers across the United States. The bakery produced tens of thousands of panettoni each holiday season. Cossetta's panettone was named the best in the United States at the North American competition four years in a row, and the team also won first place in the 2025 chocolate competition. In November 2026, at the Coppa del Mondo del Panettone in Milan, it won best traditional panettone from outside Europe and the critics' choice for best panettone of all countries entered.

Cossetta was married to Gail Cossetta, who was with him in Rome when he died. Friends and colleagues in the Twin Cities food world described him as beaming with pride over the panettone programme in the weeks before the competition. In the 1980s and beyond, the business also took part in St. Paul community life, including Italian festivals in Irvine Park and donating meals to the Dorothy Day Center and the Salvation Army.

Cossetta transformed a small immigrant grocery into one of St. Paul's landmark businesses and one of the oldest family run Italian American institutions in Minnesota. His family described Cossetta as a gathering place on West Seventh Street where everyone was welcome at the same table. His decision to invest heavily in the neighbourhood, first in the 1980s and again with the 2013 expansion, helped anchor the Seven Corners area around the arena, and his final ambition, to take Cossetta's award winning panettone to a national audience, was recognised on the world stage only days before his death.