Franco, whom they call «the owner and the man who started this adventure», did not arrive behind the counter by chance. He had always worked in trade: first an ice-cream seller, then a partner in a pasta factory. When he opened the shop in 1977 he brought all that experience with him — and the shop was born already knowing how to buy, not only how to sell.

At the start the range covered everything that is not fresh meat and fish: bread, fruit and vegetables, cured meats, cheeses, drinks. The daily necessities. Then, they write, «as the business grew we became more and more passionate about what we do» and they began to look for the best products from Tuscan producers and beyond.

On their website the business states what it stands on. They are criteria, and you can see they have been used.

A service attentive to the needs of every customer. An almost friendly relationship with those who come in, «with whom we get to know each other better every day». Products chosen for their flavour, looking at how they are made and where they come from. And attention to the relation between what a thing is worth and what it costs.

At the end of the nineties the sons took over. Federico learnt from Franco how to choose cured meats and cheeses, and at that counter he kept improving until he arrived — so they maintain, and in Livorno nobody seems to contradict them — at one of the best selections in the city.

Then there is wine. He grew passionate about it before making it a craft, and in 2008 he became a FISAR sommelier. From there he began bringing bottles into the shop's range, until in 2015 he opened a selection of his own in a small room next to the shop. Everything else came out of that room: today the wine bar stands opposite the main premises, keeps over a hundred labels and hosts the Christmas show-room, the tastings and the events.

The other brother took on the part that cannot be delegated. Riccardo goes to choose the fresh fruit and vegetables at the market himself, every day. He began by following Franco and learning from him for years, until the task became his alone: he has been going for more than twenty-five years.

They explain the point of that early alarm themselves, and it is not romantic: in twenty-five years you learn to know the varieties, to tell the qualities apart, and above all to understand when it is worth buying and when it is better to leave well alone. It is the reason why that counter carries nothing but what is in season.

There is also a second craft inside the first. Riccardo is a trained cook from the catering college, and that changes the kind of advice he can give: not «take this one», but «for that dish you need this other».

In the family's account Pupa appears not as an owner but as the teacher of one precise thing: paying attention to the needs of those who come in. Because the customers, as she did, take those products home and cook with them for their family.

It is a lesson in craft disguised as care. Whoever sells food is choosing what people they know by name will eat tonight.

On their website, all this is possible «only thanks to the collaboration of the bimbe più uno — the girls plus one, as we call them — who believe every day in who we are». And then:

«In a neighbourhood shop the staff are not a cost: they are the reason the queue at the till moves and someone remembers what you bought last week.

Edoardo is Federico's first son, and he is often seen in the shop — serving customers, or doing the things that, in their words, «the two older ones just don't understand properly», that is, running the business online.

Then there is Albertino, the second, sixteen years old. On the family website it says that «everyone would already like him as the boss», and that he has only one motto.

The shop's digital side is a loyalty card that lives on WhatsApp. Whoever signs up receives the reserved weekly discounts, previews of limited products, invitations to tastings. At the counter you simply show the message at the till.

It is the most honest way of taking online a relationship that already exists in person: a short message, from someone who knows you, when there is something you really care about.