Joe Ciccarelli has owned Dave & Tony Salumeria for the past 39 years. Photo: Shane O’Brien
Oct. 9, 2024 By Shane O’Brien
For as long as anyone can remember, Dave & Tony Salumeria has been a staple in Astoria, offering locals fresh mozzarella, homemade sausages, cured meats, and the finest Italian imports.
The store is so old that owner Joe Ciccarelli, who took over 39 years ago and started working there nearly 50 years ago, can only estimate when it originally opened.
Ciccarelli estimates that the store is at least 80 years old, pointing to the fact that the store has had two previous owners and once existed as Santoro on Astoria Boulevard before moving to its current location at 35-18 30th Ave. long before he started working there. Others estimate that the store is around 100 years old.
Regardless of its exact age, one thing is clear: Dave & Tony Salumeria has been an Astoria institution for decades. However, this legacy will come to an end by late October.
Photo: Shane O’Brien
Ciccarelli always planned to retire at 65, given the demanding nature of the job, which requires him to open the store at 6 a.m. and stay until 7 p.m., six days a week.
However, he had hoped that someone else would step in to take over the business, like he did 39 years ago.
“I’ve been planning this for years,” Ciccarelli said. “I thought it would be easier (to find new owners).”
Ciccarelli, who owns the building where Dave & Tony Salumeria is located, eventually decided to rent the space to new tenants after a number of potential suitors backed out of taking over the Italian store.
The popular store will subsequently become a new burger restaurant once Ciccarelli closes shop at the end of the month.
Its closure marks the end of an era for Astorians, particularly those from the Italian community who have frequented the store for decades to find products from the old country that they simply would not find elsewhere.
The salumeria, the Italian term for deli, has gained a strong reputation for its fresh mozzarella, made by Ciccarelli on-site every morning, as well as its homemade Italian sausages.
Ciccarelli making fresh cheese. Photo Shane O’Brien
Ciccarelli learned how to make mozzarella while working on his family farm in Italy as a child and has never forgotten the old customs since moving to the US.
“I was 10 years old when I came here from Italy,” Ciccarelli said. “(Before that), my father used to have a small farm, and I had to help out. I used to work when I was eight or nine years old.”
Ciccarelli said the store’s imminent closure is bittersweet, stating that he is looking forward to a much-needed rest but adding that he will also miss the customers who have regularly visited his store over the past four decades.
“It’s not like a had a ton of customers,” he said. “But the ones I have are good. They come in, they spend.”
He added that he has gotten to know some of his regular customers on a deeply personal level while operating the store and said he can even identify some customers by the way they open the door to the store. For other customers, Ciccarelli knows to expect them at the same time every week.
“On a Monday morning at nine o’clock, boom. That person was here,” Ciccarelli said. “Sometimes I knew exactly who was opening the door just by the noise the door made.”
Ciccarelli has clearly established a close relationship with many of his regular customers. On this particular morning, several elderly customers paused to chat with Ciccarelli in fluent Italian before leaving the store.
That sort of interaction has been a hallmark of Dave & Tony’s, but it has become far more regular since news broke last month that Ciccarelli was preparing to close down.
“Customers are very sad,” he said. “I have stuff that’s very hard to find anywhere else and some of them are buying items by the case.”
Ciccarelli said the secret to success over the past 40 has been stocking premium Italian imports that people will struggle to find elsewhere.
“You gotta make your money on the stuff that nobody else has… I have to carry stuff that people can’t find in other places.”
As a result, the salumeria has made a name for itself, selling a variety of highly sought-after Italian products, including Mulino Bianco biscuits, Mutti pasta sauce, and Puglia Sapori Italian snacks. It also stocks dozens of different pasta varieties and shapes in addition to some of Italy’s finest olive oil.
Ciccarelli has observed wholesale change to the local neighborhood during his decades at Dave & Tony’s, stating that 30th Avenue has changed drastically in the past half-century. He said he was fortunate to own the building where the store is located due to rising rents in the neighborhood, stating that he would have probably had to close years ago if he was still paying rent.
“Thank God I own the building,” Ciccarelli said. “If I didn’t own the building, I don’t know if I could have been here this long.”
Ciccarelli is now preparing to close the curtain on his time at Dave & Tony’s and is no longer taking in new deliveries, except for perishable goods such as meat and cheese. As a result, shelves are beginning to empty, leaving some gaps between products, which irks Ciccarelli.
“I never have my store this empty. I hate to see it like this,” he said. “If you ever came in here around Christmas time, you wouldn’t be able to walk in here with all the stuff I had.”
But with holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving on the horizon, Ciccarelli is happy to be getting out of the business before the busiest season of the year, allowing him to enjoy a well-earned break.
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