Owner of the Hungry-I nightclub in San Francisco, which featured such up-and-coming stand-up comics in the 1950s and 1960s as Jonathan Winters, the Smothers Brothers and Lenny Bruce. It was a "must" place to be for stand-up comedians to try their material out on a hip audience.
He was a popular fixture of San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. He founded one of the city's first sidewalk cafes, Enrico's on Broadway.
At age 13 he went to San Francisco to study violin with the concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony.
He was born into a farming family. He reportedly changed his first name to Enrico after opera singer Enrico Caruso.