Inside this beloved Boardman marketplace, Italian tradition, local flavor, and the warmth of family gather around the same table.
There are stores you enter with a shopping list, and there are stores that convince you to abandon the list entirely. Lariccia’s Italian Marketplace belongs to the latter category.
Walk through the doors, and you are no longer simply running an errand in Boardman, Ohio. You have stepped into a small corner of Little Italy, where the pasta aisle inspires dinner plans, the deli counter tests your ability to make decisions, and the scent of something wonderful seems to suggest that you should have arrived hungry. This is not grocery shopping in the ordinary sense. It is a gastronomic journey, best taken slowly and preferably with room in the refrigerator.
If Lariccia’s were a song, it would surely be the theme from Cheers. It is the kind of place where “everybody knows your name,” or, at the very least, treats you as though they soon will. That familiar warmth is part of what distinguishes a neighborhood marketplace from a large grocery chain. You are not merely purchasing lunch meat, pasta or a bottle of wine. You are entering a place shaped by relationships, recommendations and the understanding that good food was never meant to be impersonal.
Begin, naturally, with the deli.
Behind the glass waits an abundant selection of Boar’s Head meats and cheeses, each presenting a convincing argument for becoming part of your next sandwich. My recommendation is the Cracked Pepper Mill Smoked Turkey Breast, which brings enough seasoning to be interesting without overpowering everything accompanying it. Add a good cheese, fresh bread and perhaps something briny from the antipasto selection, and an ordinary lunch suddenly develops character.
Of course, Lariccia’s does not leave all the work to you. Its handmade subs are prepared in-house for those occasions when hunger has arrived before inspiration. Generous, satisfying and built with the sort of ingredients that make a sandwich feel like a proper meal, they are a reminder that convenience does not have to mean compromise. The store’s meatball mix has also earned high praise from Kathy Zidian, who calls it the best. In a region where opinions about meatballs are taken almost as seriously as the meatballs themselves, that is no casual endorsement.
Then there is the wedding soup.
Few foods are as closely connected to the Italian American table of northeastern Ohio. Lariccia’s offers its homemade version alongside other comforting favorites, including chicken noodle soup and pasta fagioli. These are the kinds of soups that appear to have been made for cold afternoons, family dinners and those days when only something familiar will do. They do more than fill a bowl. They carry memory, tradition and the quiet reassurance that someone has already taken care of supper.
Continue into the aisles, and the journey widens. Shelves of pasta offer shapes for nearly every sauce, appetite and family recipe, from the recognizable classics to varieties that might inspire you to call an aunt and ask how she would prepare them. Sauces, olives, pepperoncini, pantry staples and generous cans of Italian plum tomatoes stand ready for the Sunday cook who understands that a proper sauce cannot be rushed.
Lariccia’s also makes room on its shelves for other businesses whose products contribute to the culinary character of the region. Gia Russa specialties sit alongside DeLallo pastas, sauces, tomatoes and Italian provisions. Giannios chocolates bring a little Youngstown confectionery history to the store, with choices such as peanut butter, maple cream, English toffee, sea salt caramel and pecan snappers presenting their own considerable temptation.
This support of other businesses matters. A local marketplace does more than sell products when it gives regional names a place on its shelves. It helps preserve the flavors and companies that have become part of our shared community story. One purchase can support the store you are standing in, the local producer whose name appears on the package, and the traditions both are helping carry forward.
Eventually, you will find yourself near the wine.
Lariccia’s collection offers bottles for the meal you are preparing, the host gift you nearly forgot or the quiet evening that calls for something more civilized than drinking water beside the kitchen sink. Choose a red to accompany pasta and meatballs, a white for a lighter meal or simply the bottle whose label makes you imagine a table beneath a Tuscan sun. Sometimes a small adventure begins with expert knowledge. Sometimes it begins because the bottle looks promising.
Whatever you choose, do not leave without dessert.
The cases and shelves hold Italian cookies, biscotti and an assortment of sweets capable of turning coffee into an occasion. There are trays filled with colorful cookies, chocolate-dipped varieties and powdered confections that look as though they should be served on a grandmother’s best plate. At the counter, biscotti flavors such as almond, pistachio, sugar cookie and red, white and berry wait in neat rows. Select one for tomorrow morning’s coffee, then select another because experience suggests the first may never survive the drive home.
That is the particular charm of Lariccia’s Italian Marketplace. It offers the ingredients for a family recipe, the shortcut for a busy evening, the wine for a celebration and the sweets that require no occasion at all. Yet its true appeal cannot be measured by the number of pasta varieties or deli selections found inside.
Lariccia’s feels like a place where food still means something. It is heritage preserved in a pot of wedding soup, community represented on a shelf of locally connected brands, and hospitality expressed through the simple act of remembering a customer. In a world increasingly designed for speed and anonymity, that kind of place is worth savoring.
Go for the Cracked Pepper Turkey. Stay for the conversation. Leave with the wedding soup, a handmade sub, two boxes of cookies, a bottle of wine, and enough pasta to suggest you are expecting relatives from out of town.
The shopping list never stood a chance.
Leave a Reply