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Break out the Champagne for Davio’s and Avila owner Steve DiFillippo, who was inducted into the Massachusetts Hospitality Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, on November 17. It’s well-deserved recognition for the man who opened the first Davio’s 23 years ago, yet DiFillippo is humble about the honor. “Who am I?” he says. “I’m basically an employee of Davio’s and Avila. I think it’s really a thing for everyone who works with me. We do a lot of charity work, we help the community quite a bit, we’re a busy restaurant still, and that’s because of everybody. I have 400 employees; it’s not all about me.” So now that he’s joined such renowned Hall of Fame honorees as Julia Child and Jasper White, what’s next for DiFillippo? For starters, he’s planning to be around for awhile. “When they said the Hall of Fame, I was like, jeez, it sounds like I’m on the back nine,” he laughs. “I’m hoping I’m on the front nine. I really just want to do this for the rest of my life. I hope to never retire, I hope that I can keep growing and do more restaurants and keep doing more charity work. If I can just keep being profitable and keep everyone excited about coming to our restaurants, then I’ll be doing good, because profitability is power. I can do more and more for the community if I can just keep the restaurants busy. So that’s my goal: to keep this business going strong so I can be here for the next 30 years. We’ll see what happens, but I’m not going anywhere.”