On Thursday, Nov. 8, we stopped in to check out Meadowbrook Plaza's newest business, Rizzo's Sandwich Shop, at precisely the wrong time: high noon.
Five people, all in a group, were bellying up to the counter there at that moment, so we beat a retreat, found something else to do for a time, then returned, as it happened, just as four members of the group were exiting amid much laughter.
Emboldened by the merriment, we snagged one by the elbow to ask them who they were and what they thought of the food they'd just had.
Amid much kibbitzing, they told us that they were Dale Wilde, Bob Champagne, Dana Coolbroth and Phil Corbette, engineers all, and all employees of the consulting firm Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, Inc, in Portsmouth. Dale called the chicken soup she'd had at Rizzo's "awesome," and that verdict was heartily echoed by the other three, who'd also all had the chicken parm. But all semblance of objectivity dissolved in more laughter when they were rejoined on the sidewalk by the fifth member of their group, Shawna Fournier, who revealed that she was married to a Rizzo's cook.
By then we'd discovered that that cook was Chris Fournier, of Greenland, N.H., and that he was brother-in-law-to-be to Rizzo's founder and proprietor (and also cook), Steven Rizzo, who's engaged to Chris's sister, Melissa, who's a nurse at Portsmouth's Edgewood Center. A third worker on the scene, and the only other Rizzo employee thus far, is Derek Morrissey, of Rye, N.H., whose mother is also Chris's sister. Rizzo's is, clearly, a family affair.
At the center of it all is Steven, and he was gracious enough with us on that Thursday to take time out from what was only his third day in business to fill us in on his background.
A native of Long Island who grew up under the shadow of the JFK airport, he got his first job at a delicatessen after his mother "threw me out of the house and told me to go get a job," he told us. He would earn an associate's degree in security management at the University of New Haven ("the other UNH," he quipped, adding, "it also stands for ‘no house, no hockey, no hope'") and put that degree to work from 1988 to 1992 installing burglar and fire alarms in this region, to which he'd been introduced by a college friend.
He was much more interested in cooking, however, so returned to Long Island to run a full-scale deli with a cousin. When the cousin moved to Florida, he got out of the deli business to become caddy master at the Woodmere Country Club in Woodmere, Long Island, and there he remained for 10 years.
We didn't get all the details about his most recent return to the Seacoast, we think, but it was clear that it came from long-standing contacts that he made with the Fourniers and Morrisseys when he was first here. At that time, Steven played on a softball team with which John Morrissey, Derek's father, was connected; Derek was then only 4. In Steven's mind, the sandwich shop is first cousin to a deli, and its appeal for him all the people-contact it provides, along with what he calls "something different every day."
Rizzo's Sandwich Shop was for a time last year the Tre Regazze Café, but the décor is now totally Rizzo's. "Everything you see is what we've done," Steven said, and what we saw were lots of spotlessly white walls and floors, with large rectangles of black here and there, black-and-white small-checked tablecloths (there are several small tables and a sit-down eating area) to match the same pattern in curtains, and other big blocks of color in bright red and bright green, arranged in such a way as to suggest the Italian flag. Steven, Chris and Derek all wore T-shirts in brilliant green with "Rizzo's Sandwich Shop" discreetly lettered on them in white, while on the shop's walls were some sports memorabilia, including a big aerial shot in color of Fenway Park.
Mention of those last led Steven to lean in close and advise us to report that he might be a Mets fan but he was NOT a Yankee fan. Chris and Derek, however, he was quick to add, are definitely Red Sox fans, and they concurred, immediately and loudly. Steven is also, he added, a Jets fan. The name, he said, could stand for "Just End The Season." "They're my team," he said abashedly, "but I know they stink."
When we got to talk to Chris and Derek a bit, we learned that both had been through the culinary arts program at Portsmouth High School, Chris finishing 17 years ahead of Derek in 1989, and Derek graduating in 2006. Chris's work since then has been in car and motorcycle repair - he worked at Midas Muffler in Newington, N.H., for example, and, most recently, at Depot Honda, a motorcycle shop in Rye, N.H. Derek, in addition to working full-time now at Rizzo's, runs a house-painting company, Morrissey Painting, out of Portsmouth.
With only three business days behind him, it was too soon for Steven to assess how Rizzo's was faring. "We're trying to work out a few kinks here and there," he said - to get the kitchen set up for faster service, for example, and to get faxes out to local businesses to let them know that they can call ahead for lunch pickups, and to keep them informed about lunch specials that change daily. But he figured that it was to his credit and customers' benefit that "everything's made to-order and on-premises," from the egg salad to the roast beef, and it would only be a matter of time before word got out. In, fact, it looked to us that day like word was already out
Nathanial Perham, who works for Eldredge Lumber, was there for his third straight day, getting a hot turkey sandwich with gravy and French fries; he'd previously had the meatballs and, when asked if he'd recommend the place to others, said quickly, "Definitely!"
Derek Peretti, who bought the UPS ("Mailboxes, Etc") store two years ago, also popped in and reported that this was also his third lunch in a row there; he ordered one "Godfather" to eat in and another to go (Rizzo's "Godfathers" are hot roast-beef sandwiches on garlic bread with mozzarella; "Godmothers" there are the same thing with turkey meat) , and he pronounced the food (including a Rizzo's breakfast he'd also had) "incredible, really good," adding (speaking of the breakfast) "and you can't beat the prices, especially with a cup of coffee."
And Becky Reno paid Rizzo's the ultimate compliment. A waitress and bartender next door at the New Bar and Grill (also new at Meadowbrook) she was another repeat customer in for lunch. "We're all family in this plaza, aren't we?" she said to us and to the others, and then made a special point of crying out to Peretti, who has a newborn at home, "Tell Brenda I said good luck with the baby!"
Rizzo's is open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday and can be reached at 363-1940.
