34 THE QUEENS COURIER • QUEENS BUSINESS • NOVEMBER 14, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
queens business
Photos: Max Parrott/QNS
Mario’s Meats and Deli is Middle Village’s sole surviving butcher
BY MAX PARROTT
mparrott@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Th ere used to be four butchers on the
stretch of Metropolitan Avenue around
75th and 78th streets, but only the “king”
could survive.
Mario’s Meats and Deli, self-dubbed
the “King of Italian Style Veal Cutlets
and Homemade Sausage,” has been selling
homemade sausages and meat butchered
in-house since 1982. It embodies the
idea of Middle Village as a small neighborhood,
where residents come in to their
local businesses not just for products, but
for conversation.
Owner Joe DiGangi inherited the
business from his father Mario aft er he
died in 2011. Mario moved to America
from Polizzi Generosa, Italy, in 1971 and
worked at meat markets in Queens for 12
years before opening up his own.
DiGangi studied the art of butchery
from watching his father. He said that
since taking over the business, he’s tried
to not to change it too much while catering
to more of the high-end realm of artisanal
meats. Th e front counter carries pieces
from veal osso bucco to prime angus
tomahawk and dry-aged steaks.
DiGangi said that while butchering
meat in-house is more time-consuming,
it allows him to a level of quality control
that wouldn’t be otherwise possible.
“I know how fresh the meat is … If I
look at a piece of meat hanging, I know
exactly how fresh it is,” said Digangi.
DiGangi gets all his beef from a market
in Hunts Point, where he meets local suppliers
to handpick his cuts for the week.
He said the sausage recipe came straight
from Sicily. It’s remained unaltered from
when his father fi rst opened the store.
In addition to their famous sausages,
the store makes other Italian delicacies
and entrees. DiGangi said that their
roasts are especially popular when the
holidays come around, oft en attracting
people from Long Island and the other
boroughs.
As he showed QNS around the store,
DiGangi couldn’t help but bump into customers
who have been coming to the store
for decades and ask them about their kids
or their opinions on the cut of meat he
had sent them home with the past week.
He said it is the intimate connection
with his customers that has maintained
the success of the shop in the age of grocery
apps.
“Everything is fresh. Everything is
authentic — a lot of imported things,” said
Ion Oltean, a doctor who drives down
from Forest Hills Gardens regularly. “It’s
also a great place to have a cup of coff ee
and be like, ‘How are you? How is everything?’
It’s like a family environment.”
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