02/15/2026
In about a month and a half from now I have decided to embark on a new adventure even though some of my family says that I am crazy for doing this at the age of 58. In late 2005 I had decided to resign from a company that I had worked for many years and I decided to open Piccolo Italian Market and Deli in Sarasota Florida, two years later we had to expand because 650 square feet were not enough for the volume that we were doing so we than doubled in size fast forward 5 years and we were once again busting at the seams that customers had to squeeze by one another, we than found a location that was double size and at the same time I ventured into the wholesale business of Italian specialty products where during the day my wife was managing the store and I went out selling to other Italian markets and restaurants, at the end of the day I would return to the deli to make our own homemade sausage for the next day working till 2 or 3 am. This went on until late 2018 when we decided to sell Piccolo Italian Market and Deli in Sarasota Florida and we were going to concentrate just on wholesale since that I had built up a clientele over the years. As we started to get larger shipments of Italian products in March or 2019 a transport company using faulty equipment dropped an 1800 pound pallet of product on me breaking my left leg in 3 places which that put us on hold for 6 months, during those six months we had loyal customers that would contacts us for product and my wife would meet them at the warehouse. A year later covid 19 came and restaurants, Markets and delis were starting to close because of the pandemic, in late January 2021 where just about everything was shut down and everyone was working remotely, we just decided to close it down in February of 2021. In 2023 I decided that we had to make a move, so we started to look in different states being that our daughter Alessia was living in Phoenix Arizona I went to take a look at opportunities but taking into consideration what the cost to bring product to Arizona would cost which was astronomical I decided to come to Delaware and look where we already had family that own ALO IMPORTS living here as I began looking and going into other stores and engaging in a conversation with people I kept hearing the same thing "I wish we had Italian stores like NYC or NJ. At that moment a light went on in my head, and I said to myself this is the place for me to open where we can make a lot of people happy and feel like that there back in NYC or NJ but also introduce the meaning of true Italian products to the residents of Delaware. Stay tuned for more to come.
