Pezzettino Italian Deli & Market carrying on a family tradition

Annie Barbieri Spohn’s maternal grandfather owned and operated neighborhood Italian deli and grocery stores, Sola’s, in the North End and Midtown.

Now a vintage Sola’s menu hangs on the wall of Spohn’s new Pezzettino Italian Deli Market — a 2014 version of her grandfather’s shop that is scheduled to open Wednesday at 2101 Broadway.

Spohn has lived in California for more than three decades, but she has often returned to visit family. Now she’s moving back to her hometown with her husband, Christopher, to focus on Pezzettino. The couple spent more than a year working on the space, making use of the high ceilings and large windows that let in natural light from the north and west.

Tables and chairs — including a community table — surround a central counter area. On the north side are deli cases with Italian meats and cheeses. Customers will be able to sit at the bar on the south side for a front-row-seat view of the action behind the counter. Pezzettino has two garage doors that will open up to the outdoor patio during nicer weather.

Pezzettino’s executive chef, Tomas Digregorio, has worked at such local restaurants as Bluestem, the American Restaurant and Piropos.

On the menu are traditional Roman flatbreads rolled out and then cooked on the griddle and filled with such items as meat, cheese and vegetables, and Sola and Barbieri family recipes used for such dishes as risotto croquette with sugo, along with a ricotta and vegetable tart that comes with or without salami. Some other menu items are marinated olives served with warm bread, pasta of the day, and salads such as the imported tuna with romaine, radicchio, borlotti beans, celery and tomato with a red wine vinaigrette.

The market shelves are stocked with many of the couple’s favorite imported pastas and sauces, olive oils, white truffle oil, Italian honey, Italian candy, cakes and cookies. The market also carries a few Italian cookbooks and fresh baked bread from downtown’s Sasha’s Baking Co.

“We fell in love with the Crossroads. It is a very eclectic area,” Christopher Spohn said.

Hours will be 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. It will stay open later during First Friday events. It will be closed on Sunday.

North Kansas City’s revamped Burlington Plaza is filling up.

A 20,079-square-foot Advance Auto Parts store opened in March at 2610 Burlington Ave.

A 12,000-square-foot Nuts and Bolts True Value hardware store is under construction on the north end of the center at 2720 Burlington with a June opening scheduled. Nuts and Bolts also is in negotiations to open a Shawnee store this fall.

About 57,000 square feet of space is still available in Burlington Plaza between Advance Auto Parts and Nuts and Bolts. It could be divided up for smaller tenants.

The center also is in negotiations for a national coffee shop brand to go in the drive-through coffee kiosk on the south corner.

“We are repositioning the building to be a multi-tenant retail center,” said Richard Lanning, president of NT Realty Inc. “It is just across the bridge from downtown Kansas City, and it is one of the first buildings you see as you come into North Kansas City.”

Check out the Star’s 816 and 913 news magazines for more retail and restaurant news, including new Independence Center tenants, new restaurants for Briarcliff Village and Gladstone, Leawood movie theater remodeling, and reader retail and restaurant questions.

This story was originally published April 14, 2014 at 11:55 PM with the headline "Pezzettino Italian Deli & Market carrying on a family tradition."