F. Martinella Closes After Less Than Nine Months
When you sign a lease for $125 a foot at the tippy-top of the market, your margin for error is pretty slim. The founders of F. Martinella’s, which opened last October after much speculation, have just found that out the hard way. A reader happened to be walking by the high-end deli at the corner…
When you sign a lease for $125 a foot at the tippy-top of the market, your margin for error is pretty slim. The founders of F. Martinella’s, which opened last October after much speculation, have just found that out the hard way. A reader happened to be walking by the high-end deli at the corner of Court and State last night around 10:30 p.m. and reported back to us that the entire store was being disassembled and all the fixtures and appliances loaded onto a flatbed truck outside. When we rode by a few minutes ago, the windows were papered over and the sign in the window read “Store Closed.” Update: BHB and Flappy Days also have coverage.
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Actually, their prices on cheese was better than Key… up to $2/lb cheaper on black-wax cheddar (I used to buy 1-2 pounds of cheese and meat per week there). I’ll miss this place for the great selection of sliced meats/cheeses (they had stuff no one else had). What I won’t miss is the slow as molasses employees, and (I don’t know how to be politically correct when I say this) they were basically idiots. Sometimes, nice & stupid is better than a smart asshole, so I could handle it. At least they weren’t like the Duane Reade “wha happen?” employees.
I am a physical therapy student at LIU and I discovered this place soon after it opened. This was the “go to” place for myself and my classmates. Free Wi-Fi, delicious sandwiches and soups, and big tables in the basement… great for studying all day. We knew all the employees there and they knew us by name and treated us like family. I don’t know what we are going to do now or where we are going to go. Starbucks and Barnes & Noble charge for internet and most places don’t have the space we need to study. and WHERE can I get a good bowl of chili now?!?!?! F Mart had great chili, everyday! This is such an upsetting loss.
very sad, a real loss for the area.
Never attracted me; looked like a boring deli from some college town — safe food without creativity or adventure. I’d love a full Italian deli/hot pasta/salad bar place with a more earthy, rustic or ethnic decor. Boar’s Head’s deli was too bland-generic-American-city.
yeah…this place was a train wreck. I really wanted this place to work, i am surprised it lasted this long. Everytime I went there i had to repeat my order multiple times, and an employee making my sandwich even asked me once what muenster cheese was. Funny.
How are cold cuts healthy?!
Good example of too much corporate mucky muck not being able to get something simple off the ground.
I’d argue that if I’m coming home out of Borough Hall stop, Chop Chop and place on Montague are entirely too far out of the way for the lazy/rushed.
That said, this place was a bit of a joke. They couldn’t do a breakfast sandwich right. A high-end deli that had what looked like preformed scrambled egg patties pulled from the frozen food section? For those prices? Feh.
I tried this place a few times when it opened, but, like other posters, I found the transaction costs of getting a simple sandwich much too high. It was like having a sandwich made in slow motion: one person took your order; then another person made the sandwich; and, finally, you paid a third person, but they wouldn’t let you pay while you were waiting – you had to wait for the sandwich maker to physically hand your sandwich to the cashier.