Nicola Paone (October 5, 1915 – December 25, 2003) was an Italian-American singer, songwriter, and restaurateur, best known for his humorous, chart-topping songs about the joys and hardships of Italian immigrants in America.

In 1923, he moved with his parents and four sisters to Torregrotta, his father's village in Sicily, and there his exposure to local culture promoted his musical advancement and inspired him to begin composing little songs.

In the late 1940s, wishing to further expand his audience beyond Italian-Americans, Paone formed a vaudeville troupe whose act included midgets, comedians and trained bears, performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Palace Theater on Broadway.

His popularity soon grew outside of the U.S. to Europe, South America, and as far as Israel, where his song "The Telephone No Ring" became a hit in a Hebrew-language adaptation by the comedy troupe HaGashash HaHiver.

In the 1950s, Paone sued Louis Prima, a singer and musician also from Sicily, over his song "The Little Donkey," which he felt was a copyright infringement against his own record "U Sciccareddu."

The restaurant had served countless patrons over its 50 years of operation, including every New York City mayor from Robert Wagner to Rudolph Giuliani.

Nicola Paone has touched and inspired generations of immigrants who have related to his music through their own experiences and hardships in adapting to American society.

He was the subject of a paper entitled "Nicola Paone: Narrator of the Italian-American Experience," written by Pamela R. and Salvatore Primeggia and Joseph J. Bentivegna and published in the book Italian Americans in a Multicultural Society (Forum Italicum, 1994).