PORTLAND, Maine — Ed Anania, 63, worked the counter at his store on Congress Street Tuesday morning, ringing people up, taking sandwich orders and consoling heartbroken customers who just heard the news.
The landmark 61-year-old sandwich shop, Anania’s Variety Store, will close for good on Friday.
All morning, a steady stream of stunned customers — brown-coated delivery drivers, men in orange safety vests and construction workers in steel-toed boots — received the news with a mix of sadness and gratitude.
“God bless you and best of luck,” one woman said, shaking Anania’s hand in what would have become a tearful hug if the counter hadn’t been so wide.
Originally, Anania announced that the Libbytown store would close on Christmas Eve, but a buyer stepped forward sooner than expected, pushing up the date by more than a month. He’s already in the process of selling another store, on Washington Avenue, to its manager.
Thus, Friday will mark the end of an era in Portland’s food and cultural history.
The city was once dotted with dozens of family-owned, Italian-American-named corner grocery and sandwich shops. But, in recent years, gas station-based convenience chains including 7-Eleven, Big Apple, and Irving have replaced the mom-and-pop stores.
Now, Anania’s is the last of its kind in the city, and it will soon be gone, too.
With it goes one of the few remaining vestiges of Portland’s former “Little Italy” neighborhood, centered around Hampshire Street and St. Peter’s Church, where Anania’s family came from.
A list of Portland’s departed corner stores reads like an Italian phone book. Quatruccis’s, Mangino’s, Corsetti’s, Ciazzo’s, Corsetti’s, DiPietro’s, Troiano’s, Terroni’s and the Taliento family’s Federal Grocery are just a few.
The Muffin Club remembers them all.
The club is an informal group that gets together twice a week to drink coffee and chat at Portland’s Italian Heritage Center. Its youngest member is 68, and the oldest is 92.
“There was an Italian store on every corner,” said club member Sam Rinaldi, 90, who used to have a store of his own. “And I remember Cartonio’s — they had a hall in the back of the store for Italian weddings and boxing matches. That was where Micucci’s warehouse is now.”
Micucci’s is a long-operating Italian wholesaler still doing business on India Street.
“My father had a store in the 1920s,” said Sam Marcisso, 91, another club member. “He and my grandfather started peddling fruits and vegetables on a cart.”
When asked why there were so many Italian stores in town, club members said the answer is simple.
“It’s the Italian love of food. We cook, we eat — that’s what we do,” said Jim DiBiase, who also used to own a store. “Us Italians, we know how to make food.”
As the legend goes, Maine’s distinctive “Italian” sandwiches were named by Portland’s Irish dock workers who bought the ham, cheese and veggie concoctions at the Amato family’s India Street store, near the city’s waterfront. The Amato family has since franchised its shops and sandwiches all over Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
Muffin Club members said the loss of Anania’s reminds them of their old Little Italy neighborhood, where Anania’s father started the family’s first store, the Newbury Street Market, before moving his family and business to Libbytown.
“My father opened this store in 1963,” Anania said, standing in the huge kitchen at his store. “I’ve been filling soda coolers here since I was 10 years old.”
Anania said he’s taken pride in keeping the old Italian neighborhood feel in his store, selling a fine selection of old-country wine, imported capers, olives, pepperoncini and Botto’s Italian bread, and being friendly.
“When you go to a convenience store — not to knock them — there’s just some person behind the counter that’s just going to give you what you want,” Anania said. “There’s no conversation for the most part. When you walk into a store like this — especially 50 years ago — everybody knows everybody.”
On Tuesday, a man sporting slick-backed hair and shades walked through the door to a chorus of people saying, “Hi Elvis.”
“I figured I better come in and get one of your famous Italian breakfast sandwiches before it’s too late,” said the longtime customer, Ernie Farr, resembling the king due to his distinctive hairdo and eyeware. “What will you do when this is closed?”
Anania smiled and repeated what he’d been telling customers all morning. He and his wife, Barb, are going to travel, first to visit their daughters down south, and then a month in Ireland.
“I’m actually an Irish citizen,” Anania said, relishing the irony.
Both he and his wife each have a set of grandparents from Ireland, which allows them to claim official status on the Emerald Isle. Portland’s Little Italy neighborhood bordered the Irish part of town just across Pearl Street, and it wasn’t uncommon to have grandparents from both Ireland and Italy, Anania said.
Anania wants his customers to know that he’s not closing because business is bad. It’s actually good.
“I don’t want them to think, ‘Oh no, another one bites the dust.’ It’s not like that. It’s just that I’ve been working here for 50 years, and it’s time to retire,” he said. “But I’ll miss the people, my employees, the interactions. I hope they know that.”
