East Rock Grocery Closing After 31 Years

After over three decades of serving chicken marsala, sausage and peppers, fig and prosciutto pizza, and many, many more homemade Italian delicacies out of its Orange Street storefront, Romeo & Cesare’s Gourmet Shoppe will close for good on Christmas Eve.

The East Rock Italian grocery has long been located at 771 Orange St. on the ground-floor of a two-and-half-story, commercial-residential building in between Linden Street and Willow Street.

The shop’s co-founder, Romeo Simeone, and his daughter Francesca, the market’s owner, told the Independent Monday morning that Romeo & Cesare’s will be ending its storied run in New Haven on Dec. 24.

“It’s time for us to move on,” Francesca said as she worked the check-out register in the now half-empty shop. ​“We had a great run.”

Romeo moved hurriedly between the aisles of remaining tomatoes and cheeses and potatoes and homemade sauces, wearing a black kitchen apron and cutting generous chunks of pecorino cheese for departing customers as he haggled with them in Italian.

Francesca said her father, who turns 70 in January, had a heart attack last year and has a variety of other health issues that helped precipitate her family’s decision to close the store. They also closed another Orange Street culinary institution that their family owned, Cafe Romeo, earlier this year.

“I feel bad to leave,” Romeo said in a southern Italian accent that has stuck with him these many decades since his family first moved from Caserta to New Haven when he was a child. ​“All these people who have supported me.” But it’s time to retire, he said.

“My priority all these years is to give the best,” he said with pride. The best produce from nearby farms. The best cheeses imported from Italy. The best hot prepared lasagna and risotto and eggplant rollatini he and his staff could make.

“I like feeding the people.” And, about his love for chatting with neighbors who have supported him and his family’s business on Orange Street since 1988, he said, ​“I absorb a lot. Like a sponge.”

Romeo said he and his wife Louisa opened their first Italian grocery store in New Haven on Grand Avenue in 1975. Soon after that, they opened a second on Quinnipiac Avenue. And in the late 1980s, an Italian investor reached out to him and his brother Cesare and asked if they wanted to open a third, at the store’s current location on Orange Street.

Framed newspaper articles from the New Haven Register and from an Italian newspaper in Caserta hang on the wall behind the front checkout counter, a testament to the store’s culinary prowess and community engagement.

Above those is a black-and-white photograph (pictured) of Romeo and his brother Cesare, who died at age 71 earlier this year.

Sitting on a desk below those framed wallhangings is a bottle of extra virgin olive oil and a bust of Romeo himself (pictured), looking up and to the left, as crafted by East Rock sculptor Susan Clinard.

“All the fresh stuff,” Romeo said he walked by glass partitions looking onto trays of risotto (pictured) and chili peppers and mortadella and prosciutto and roasted potatoes.

“The best olives you can find,” he said passing a large wooden bowl of small green and purple pitted fruits.

A customer who gave his name as John Smith put down his coffee and newspaper at the grocery’s indoor seating area and reflected on why he’s come to Romeo & Cesare’s so regularly for years.

“It’s sort of like a good lasagna,” he said about the shop. ​“It’s layered up with all the good stuff.” Fresh food. Family-owned. Neighborhood feel.

“It’s all of it,” he said.

Esteban Campos (pictured), who runs his own catering business in Woodbridge has worked on and off as a chef at Romeo & Cesare’s for the past 15 years, said he most appreciated Romeo & Cesare’s for its ​“traditional Italian cuisine.”

Pana cotta and eggplan rollatini were two of his favorite dishes to prepare, he said. ​“My forte is Italian.”

Tony Schettino (pictured) said that he too has worked at Romeo for years, but more in a volunteer capacity, considering his long-time friendship with Romeo, who lives in Morris Cove.

Schettino said he helped order produce for the store, and would also take the lead in organizing and cooking for Romeo & Cesare’s summer outdoor prix fixe meals. For only $20, he said, you could get fig and prosciutto pizza, Italian tomato and onion salad, tomato and basil penne pasta, and slices of roasted pig.

When asked how he’ll spend his time post-retirement, Romeo paused. He’ll be more present with family, he said. He’ll take care of his health. Take a break from working all the time.

“Or maybe, in a few months, we’ll open something new. Who knows.”