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Goodfellas: The Country Bar Theme Scheme

February 19, 2026·34 min·2 clips

Reporter Robert Anglin was escorted to a back VIP room in an empty restaurant at dinnertime, surrounded by three men in suits including a silent man named only 'Phil' — and left texting his editor 'I think I just met with three mobsters.'

At first, Robert Anglin wanted to let it go. An Arizona Republic editor had heard that several Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill locations had closed, and Robert read it as normal restaurant turnover. Bars fail. End of story. Then he looked past Phoenix, and the same trouble showed up across franchise locations. Suddenly the dumb tip had legs. The restaurants were loud, country-themed places tied to a chain that had once spread widely but was down to two locations in Oklahoma. Robert kept digging through the closures. The trail led from failed bars and grills to Frank Capri, whose real identity took unusually careful sourcing to pin down. Jerry Capishi helped with the photo. Robert also worked sources including a mob prosecutor, a mob lawyer, mobsters, and historians. This was not a story anyone could rush. It took two years to confirm that Frank Capri was Frank Gioia Jr. and that the reporting could hold up legally. Then the pressure got stranger. As publication got close, the Department of Justice called and asked the paper not to publish Capri's background. That was not official confirmation, but Robert treated it as a kind of confirmation by refusal, since officials could not acknowledge someone in Witness Protection. So the whole thing stayed slippery. A restaurant closure tip had turned into a story about a protected man with a past tied to mob enforcement, drugs, guns, and murder plots. The suspense is all in the proof. Nobody gives Robert the clean answer, so the episode follows how he builds enough of a case to publish anyway.

As heard by us

A failed country-bar chain leads into mob history, witness protection, and one reporter's slow fight to prove who was really behind it.

A chain of Toby Keith-themed country bars sounds like thin material until reporter Robert Anglin starts finding the same closures across the country.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if a dead-end business tip turns into a mob story.

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