Today we’d like to introduce you to Jack Santarelli.
Hi Jack, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’m 100% Italian on both sides of my mother and fathers’ family, second-generation Italian American and our family is from the Abruzzo region of Italy. My grandparents arrived in America through Ellis Island in 1926 and 1927 and settled in south Philadelphia. I grew up helping my grandmother and mother cooking Sunday pasta dinners and started cooking at the age of 8 years old and loved it ever since. Over my lifetime I’ve owned and operated a Deli at the age of 19 and then four other restaurants as chef/owner over the next several decades as well as running corporate restaurants over that time as well I over the past 22 years I’ve owned two other businesses outside the food industry but always kept myself involved as a private chef and catering as time allowed. Finally, over the past 5-10 years, the goal was to get back into the industry but doing what I grew up with, an Italian Market and Deli and that was going to be my retirement business that I loved but without having to have a restaurant which wasn’t something I wanted to do at this age. After searching for places, going through years of covid, and getting derailed a few times due to getting covid, I finally found a location and as they say, the rest is current history which I love doing. Di Aburzzo is an ohmage to my mother and the time we spent cooking together and my countless trips to the market picking up Italian groceries for her for dinner. The people are wonderful, and our staff is the best I’ve worked with, they have the same love for Di Abruzzo as my wife and I do.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This has been far from a smooth road and even after 8 months, we still encounter hurdles that we need to overcome just to receive our imported Italian foods, groceries, and wines. We went through countless location negotiations, lots of promises made to us by property owners, renegotiations and then moving on to find other locations. Finally, things aligned, and we found a location and what worked for us and started the long process of procuring our goods that took months and covid still played a part in freight, logistics, and availability due to shortages. This has and continues to be a daily struggle procuring goods consistently for both the deli and market but what we do and how our market makes people feel when they come in makes it worth it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Di Abruzzo Italian Market?
We are a family-owned and operated authentic Italian Market and Deli that carries a large variety of imported Italian foods, groceries, wines, and deli. We specialize in homemade Italian sausages, deli items, fresh pasta, sauces, prepared grab-and-go meals, and catering. We offer all authentic Italian brands and imported cheeses and salumi shipped to us monthly. We’ve created a place that when you walk in you get the feeling of an old-world Italian market that people have grown up with especially on the East Coast. From the smell of imported olive oils to the wheels of parmesan from Italy to the cured salumi and cheeses hanging in our deli. Walk the isles in the market then you find the finest imported dried pastas even gluten-free pastas from Italy to the canned fishes and condiments that we’ve grown up on. Visit our deli where we have our butchered meats, homemade Italian sausages, ready-to-cook meatballs, braciola, seasoned Italian chicken cutlets, veal cutlets, Italian pasta salads, fresh pastas and deli meats, and cheeses from Italy. We are proud of all the Italian products we carry and that my mother’s memory is living with us every day when we cook, prepare our meatballs and sausages, and the atmosphere and market that we’ve created for everyone to enjoy and relive their childhood memories.
How do you define success?
Doing what you love to do and making people happy in the process.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.diabruzzomarket.com
- Instagram: @diabruzzoitalianmarket
- Facebook: facebook.com/diabruzzoitalian
