Good Eats	Deli Done Right by Bridget Kelly

The Sangwich? "Fuhgeddaboutit." Roast turkey breast, red peppers, provolone cheese, red onion, lettuce and Marco's famous chili mayo.

(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Marco’s Sangwiches are the best sangwiches you’ll ever have. I went to the Hertel Ave. location on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, discovering only after I’d ditched my car down the street that there is a parking lot for deli patrons at the doctor’s office next door. Inside I was greeted by two clean-cut, cheeky but polite teenage boys. When I asked one what his favorite sangwich is, he told me to forget about it, which perplexed me—he’d been so polite!—until I looked closer at the menu.

The sangwiches all have names that are puns, or plays on words, or references to obscure bits of culture. The counter boy was referring to the “Forget About It,” a turkey and provolone creation with chili mayo. Other clever names took a bit of puzzling to work out: for example, the “My Cousin Vinny” is a tuna sub. The explanation? Joe Pesci played the titular character in the movie of that name, and Pesci is Italian for fish. The décor is as playful as the names—an antique phone booth sits in back of the Hertel Ave. dining area, rescued from Marco’s in-laws’ kitchen, while vending machines filled with dried beans decorate the space behind the pop cooler.

My guest followed the counter boy’s recommendation, and tried the “Forget About It.” He will not, in fact, forget it anytime soon: the chili mayo and red peppers made an ordinary turkey sub into a tangy, smoky delight. The roll was toasted and slightly crunchy and the meat moist and tender.

Meanwhile I had the “Try Me,” one of the numerous daily specials. It was grilled roast beef with chopped onions and hot peppers, melted swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato with garlic mayo. The hot peppers were quite spicy, but as the heat died down I could taste the garlic mixing in with the Swiss, all wrapped around the meat’s soft texture and the crunch of the roll to make a sandwich unlike any other: in fact, it was distinctive enough to earn the designation of a Sangwich.

You couldn’t fail to find something good here, no matter your tastes. The menu is extensive and there’s a big chalkboard on the wall opposite the counter, with yet more offerings on specials. They have burgers, soup, antipasto, paninis, and all kinds of sides—like cole slaw and potato salad and pasta salads galore. It’s all classic North/West Buffalo comfort food, pleasing in texture, reasonable in nutritional content and superlative in flavor.

But of course Marco’s is known best for Sangwiches. You may wonder why he calls them Sangwiches, but if you’re paying attention, you don’t have to ask. Just sit at one of the tables at the Hertel Ave. location and wait for a customer to come in. See, many Italian folks of the West Side and North Buffalo, when they order a food item comprised of meat and cheese between two pieces of bread, they call it a “sangwich.”

Mark Sciortino, known as Marco to most of his kinfolks, is very much a product of that culture. He grew up on the West Side, calling a sangwich a sangwich, and got into the food industry young. “I graduated high school,” he says, “and the next day I started working at a sub shop.” Within a year he was managing a whole location; within four years, he’d opened his own restaurant. Marco’s on Niagara St. opened in 1988, when Sciortino was 21. He opened his first deli location, on Hertel Ave., in 1998.

Sciortino likes to keep things local, and likes to do business with people he knows, even as the corporation grows. His family is involved in his business. His niece and nephew run the Hertel location, and indeed the adorably cheeky counter boy who made me my sangwich was one of Marco’s younger relatives. He’s kept much of his staff for years—he’s had employees for 17 years in some cases, a long time in this line of work. But he likes to keep things consistent and on the up-and-up, and he likes his organization like he likes his family—close-knit and affectionate but no-nonsense.

And he makes a determined effort to do business as exclusively as possible with local companies—Luigi’s bakery, Guercio’s produce, and even Coke.

Coke is local?

“I switched all my locations over to Coke from Pepsi,” Marco explains. “Pepsi went national. Coke has a local plant on Military Road.” If something goes wrong, he can talk to someone he knows, in his own time zone, and get it sorted out.

The only non-local product he carries is Boar’s Head deli products, because so many of his customers came in from UB South, natives of downstate, and were homesick for Boar’s Head. He gets that shipped in for them, but it’s the only non-local product he buys.

When I told him the story of the cheeky counterboy telling me to forget about it, he broke out in laughter. “That’s how I named that sangwich,” he said. He was coming up with a menu for the new deli, so one day at his restaurant he test-marketed that sangwich to a table of local Italian businessmen. He cut it into pieces and gave them each a piece and asked what they thought. They all ate it silently, nodding at one another. Finally he asked what they thought. “Fuhgeddaboutit,” said one of them. “That’s da best sangwich I evah had. Whatchoo gonna call it?”

“Forget about it,” Marco said.

“No, whatchoo gonna call it?”

“I just told you,” Marco said, “Forget about it.”

“No, really,” the man said, “don’t mess wit me, whatchoo gonna call it?”

“I told you,” Marco said. “Forget about it!” And so on, and so on, like an old Vaudeville routine. The name has stuck, and that particular sangwich remains a fixture on the menu.