Local Italian Grocer Spreads Holiday Cheer, Decorations Brighten Aisles

NASSAU COUNTY, NY – Uncle Giuseppe's Marketplace spreads holiday cheer to its customers during their shopping experience.

CEO and Co-Founder of Uncle Giuseppe's Marketplace, Carl F. DelPrete, said Christmas is their busiest holiday of the year, and having the decorations adds to the customer experience.

"We love watching customers come in and smile," he said. "The kids love it, but the adults really love it as well, and it just puts everyone in a holiday spirit."

They have even added golf carts driven by staff to some parking lots to help customers navigate.

The market opened its first Long Island store– East Meadow– in 2001. He said they have begun decorating for the holidays even back then, "and it's grown every year as we open more stores."

He said they have gotten more elaborate with their decorations, such as having animated characters around some of the stores.

"We've been doing it since the beginning," he said.

He shared that they work with Long Island's Island Harvest and with veterans to help people get meals. At this time of year, they do a program for St. Jude's where they collect donations from customers, and then the market matches the amount.

"This year, I think we're going to hit $150,000," he said. "It's because of the generosity of our customers. We do it every Christmas season."

Every Saturday and Sunday, customers at Uncle Giuseppe's are treated to live music, with singers performing Italian classics and hits from multiple decades throughout the store. Reflecting on how the tradition began, DelPrete said, "it's an interesting story."

"Tony Deller was the original crooner," he began. "I believe one of my partners heard Tony singing at an event, and asked him if he wanted to sing at one of our markets that was in Smithtown in 2005. Tony joked, 'singing in a supermarket?' And the partner said, 'Well, we're not a supermarket. We're an experience.' And now Tony manages, I believe, 15 or 16 different singers that rotate through the store. New Jersey obviously has a group, and then New York has a separate group, but so it's not the same."

On customer interactions, he shared that senior management wears large badges.

"It's incredible the response that people give me when I walk around the store," he said. "We recently had a store opening a few weeks ago in Bohemia, and people came up to me thanking me. I was very humbled by that. For me, it's about seeing people come in and smile. That was the idea. We could create an experience that would make shopping for food enjoyable."

DelPrete shared how the business began: as wholesale distributors of fresh produce.

"In 1998, we took over a small location of the produce market, and it evolved over the years into this Italian market," he said. "Tom Barresi, my brother Philip, and I are all cofounders. We didn't have any intentions of being in the supermarket business. We just wanted to do something fun. It was never about 'how do we make money?' This was our passion project."

From one store in East Meadow to now eight on Long Island, the market has expanded, continuing to specialize in Italian products.

"We're all first-generation Italians," he said. "We grew up with that Italian tradition. We had the idea that the tradition of getting the best pasta and the best vegetables and the fresh mozzarella all under one roof. We do new recipes, but it's always about bringing back the nostalgia of the great recipes that we grew up with. It's about letting people share that Italian experience that we grew up with as kids."

On the name of the market, he shared that it's a tribute to all dear uncles.

"We named the store after a dear uncle whom we were very close to, but he never got to see the stores," DelPrete said. "It was kind of a tribute to him, and to everyone's uncle. Everyone has a dear uncle."