Mazzaro's Italian Market: Don't Brave Saturdays Unless That's Your Only Shot

Mazzaro's in St Petersburg, FL,  is so beyond description, or comparison with other entities--even in Italy--that we give up. I can tell you that select tour buses stop there. And that people drive hours from other parts of Florida to shop/eat/hang there. Their employees are loyal, and calm, and cheerful, even when customers are dithering over which biscotti to buy, or how much fresh pasta to haul home.Pear and gorgonzola pockets? Yes! A pound.

The crunchy, perfect, crispy panini sell out early in the day, and the coffee is roasted in front of your eyes. This celebratory, sprawling place, that is part deli, part bakery, part coffee bar, part cheesery and winery, part lunch joint, started out doing coffee roasting, and things just grew from there. Founded by wayward Pennsylvanians with major loyalty to Pittsburgh, Mazzaro's is where you jockey for parking, and then wait contentedly for your chicken parmesan sandwich, knowing both will work out beautifully.

 

Owner Kurt Cucarro's blog supplied these stats re Mazzaro 2010:

13,853 lbs. Cheese cut and wrapped in the Cheese department.

Italian Cookies from the bakery, 3838 lbs.

2925 lbs. of Fresh Pasta.

4435 Cannolis

Olives by the pound 2991

4500 pounds of Fresh Roasted Coffee

10,000lbs. of Flour for Bread

34,570lbs. of prepared food in the Deli

1 Semi Truck full of Wine (about 20 pallets)

Comments

[Foodie]

Tks, AZ--I will find out where the ahi is from, and what it is. I am familiar with the Monterey Bay guide, and definitely approve of all this.
I need to recheck with U of S Florida re their latest on dispersants in the Gulf....

[AZ]

Was mildly alarmed to witness your guy chowing down an ahi-tuna sandwich, and rushed to my new favorite food info site: www.seafoodwatch.org. Jean Michel Cousteau was on our cruise thru French Polynesia last month, and he repeatedly, and in varying forms, impressed upon us the vulnerability of our fellow creatures below the sea.

He handed out small wallet-sized Guides to sustainable seafood (published by the Monterey Bay aquarium). You can download these handy references from above website, or research a particular fish. But it is still tricky to sort out what is endangered and what not, and you have to hope that your local fishmonger can tell you something about the fish's provenance. Ahi tuna, for example, is a name bandied about, but most usually refers to yellowtail, which is OK if it is caught is Hawaiian or US waters and not caught by longline ...etc., etc. You doubtless know all this. But I urge you to publicize seafoodwatch.org on your blog.