In Pittsburgh's Little Italy, two stalwart grocery markets survive
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Meats, cheeses, bread and olives are on display at Donatelli's Italian Foods in Bloomfield. -
After finishing rolling and cutting the pasta, Sandy Falcione boxes freshly made fettucine at Donatelli's Italian Foods. -
Donatelli's Italian Food on Liberty Ave. in Bloomfield. -
Paul Donatelli, now retired, represents the second generation to run Donatelli's Italian Foods in Bloomfield. He still comes into the store to help. In the background is his wife, Doris. -
Bob Rodrigues, of Forest Hills, checks out the case at Groceria Italiana in Bloomfield. -
At Groceria Italiana, Cindy Kambic pipes out ravioli filling. -
The exterior of Groceria Italiana in Bloomfield. -
At Groceria Italiana in Bloomfield, customers come to the cash register with loaded arms. -
Fresh Tuscan bread waits for customers at Groceria Italiana in Bloomfield.
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In the little Italian grocery store hidden away on Cedarville Street in Bloomfield, Rose Marie Rossi knows her suppliers so well she could tell you the names of the chickens if she wanted to.
Nothing hits the shelf without her tasting it or making it herself. It's the kind of store where her father took her as a little girl decades ago. The kind that isn't supposed to exist anymore.
Walk in the door and there's fresh Tuscan bread to the right, freezers packed with homemade ravioli, almond amaretto cheesecake and pizza dough to the left. Fried dough is four for a buck in a basket next to the bread. The place smells intensely of rich meatballs simmering in a fresh red sauce.
Around the corner at Donatelli's Italian Food Center on busy Liberty Avenue, things are quite different. There is still house-made pasta and imported panettone, but the shelves also pop with soy sauce, yellow mustard, rice vinegar, Wonder Bread and "Donatelli's Wasabi Wow Mix." Even standing next to the scalloped potatoes, the aromas are neutral, vaguely sweet, as if a bakery were halfway down the block.
"I'm third-generation," said Paul Donatelli, 52, who runs the store with his brother, Russell. "What my grandfather did -- we'd never survive on what he did, doing it the old way and basically being Italian for Italian's sake in an Italian neighborhood. We'd go out of business."
Ms. Rossi is different. She wants more than to respect tradition at Groceria Italiana.
"This is my island," she said. "This is where whatever you think is a lost art is something we preserve."
Ask how old she is and she smiles, although not innocently. She doesn't do innocent.
"I work hard, I play hard, and I drink with booze," she said. "But don't you ask me my age. I'm very old. I'm from the very-old-school."
Bloomfield -- Pittsburgh's Little Italy, it says on the sign -- used to almost choke on stores like these. Now there are just the two. They have endured approaching business in their own ways, to the point that they don't much compete for business or even bragging rights.
Their owners want different things -- want to be different things. Perhaps Ms. Rossi is lucky that the way she runs her place coincides with a renewed interest in traditional food and specialty shops. Maybe she's the smarter one. Or perhaps Mr. Donatelli's grandchildren will walk down Cedarville a decade or two from now on a break from their bustling store and wonder what used to be in that little shop on the corner.
First Published February 24, 2011 12:00 am
