WESTFIELD – Dozens of people lined up outside of Angy’s Tortellini on Aug. 11 to take advantage of their inventory clearance sale as the pasta distributor closed its doors after 70 years.

Multiple people reported waiting in line for more than an hour as the line extended through the facility’s parking lot. The sale of remaining inventory began at 8:30 a.m. Aug. 11, and Angy’s President and COO Ed DeBartolo said that he anticipated that they would be sold out by Aug. 12.

Customers walked away with stacks of boxes filled with pasta, tortellini, garlic bread and other Italian foods. Geno Lucchesi waited in line for just over an hour to get boxes of lobster ravioli, meat tortellini and garlic bread. Like many customers stocking up on their favorites, he had to make multiple trips back and forth to his car to get all five boxes that he ordered.

Lucchesi said that he would often buy Angy’s products, and is sad to see them go.

“I’m sad to think that it is not going to be available at all anymore,” said Lucchesi. “It made the wait all the more worthwhile.”

Westfield City Councilor Ralph Figy was in line for pasta as well, and said he too was a fan of Angy’s before they announced their closure. He said he was purchasing tortellini and garlic bread for his daughter.

Angy’s had been in business since 1949, and was purchased by DeBartolo in 2014. DeBartolo said earlier in the week that the coronavirus pandemic is the major reason why the company is now shutting its doors.

“Last year, we were down 12 employees,” he said, “so we couldn’t keep up with production that short-staffed. And we’re not the only one.”

Trying to stay open was “a losing battle,” he said. The pandemic shutdowns last year cost Angy’s a considerable amount of business, as some of its biggest customers were sports venues that were shut down or had their capacity severely limited. Even after demand started picking up, he added, the anemic demand for jobs made it hard to attract and retain workers.