Italian foods in Rotterdam (Holland) - Little Italy

A real "Little Italy"

The Great Market Square in Rotterdam, is a very large area that extends on different file about one kilometer long, stalls selling fruit and vegetables, as well as fish, cheese and other things, twice a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. In these days, needless to say how many people and how much traffic there is, from early morning to sunset.

In one corner of this square, just in front of the square that becomes parking when you do not market, you will find the supermarket " Little Italy ", a grocery store with original Italian, with inside a section dedicated to pizza takeaway.

 From 10 in the morning to late afternoon, employees of offices and banks can count on Little Italy for the midday meal, or go shopping before going home at night.

To manage this shop for over 40 years, is a very nice gentleman of Italian descent closer to retirement, Antonio, who has long decades, with its savoir-faire, imposed stably Italian food in a tough city. We went to see him and we got a little of his time for a brief interview.

 A life spent behind the counter slicing salami, Antonio?

No, not really. I started many years ago, opening a small refreshment at a beach in Tuscania, near Comacchio. Then fate led me to decide to pursue the idea that I had done and slowly I managed to get what I wanted, in Holland. Of course, not with ease, but now I can say I can retire in a few years with no problems.

 The Italian product, one thing that continues to grow or is it just an illusion?

Illusion - Why? The Italian product has conquered the world by always, it is only those who have to then sell the carry always in vogue, even if it is then assumed that there merchant and trader, sloppy or superficial. The Italian products are widely accepted, but it is not easy to sell and not just for the price, even for him to explain to the customer what actually is and how you cook. Before we were in another way, but always in this area, the shop was small but attracted a lot, because people who went around us were so many. It was not enough for the purpose and we moved here, in this building, to allow customers to park better and have more choices for calm.

 Miscellaneous products for a varied clientele, hypermarket model where the choice is easy: this is the formula for the perfect sale?

- Absolutely not, you should always be careful to satisfy customer demands and knowledgeable, guiding the choice that has to do with a lot of honesty, always giving the best of us, not just the product. Many other Italians who have opened a business like mine, they closed in no time. Too quick to want to earn colossal figures, then pay hard errors. You have to know how to do the steps as the snail and then you are really money in your pocket and go to sleep without any problems.

Youth and freshness of the product, this is the sign of your store.

- Yes, I have always wanted young staff with me and especially Italian: we need an Italian to understand an Italian product. That's why here there are Italian girls serving at the counter, but there are also bold young Dutch, who is known to distinguish the preparation of pizzas, and now if I have a lot of customers I owe it to them, they follow me and follow the customers very well. The youth are, they want everything right now and this wrong, but we have to follow them in their race, because we know how to show the right way in many things.

 The shop is filling up and run along its surface by observing the food, the wine, and the face of the people that are revenue: all serene and smiling and all buy, those who little much, but buy with precise ideas and decision as if they had been in this store for thousands of years. Is the time of payment of the office staff and slowly the shop is full of people, a mix of Italian and Dutch chatter accompanies the order of pizzas and mixes now to the classical noise of the traffic of the crucial hours.

I exit, happy to have seen so many good things Italian in a shop well maintained and, of course, holding a package with good fresh pizza Margherita to consume while driving.

Rotterdam, 28/03/2014-Mikhail Lermontov for INC News