I visited this place a few times on Saturdays, just to pick up some tasty Italian meats or a loaf of bread or whatever. Anyone who has been to a real Italian deli in a place like Boston or Philly or even Chicago will be a little disappointed in Carollo’s, but it’s a very nice, basic little store and deli counter that seems to fit KC’s status perfectly. Not great, but good. Not too big, but hey, at least we have one!
Recently I have been making an effort to patronize City market establishments in order to broaden my horizons. Basically I was getting so depressed eating subs, overpriced hamburgers and astonishingly mediocre Chinese food that I started eating healthy choice frozen dinners, food court sushi, and other unrecommended items to add a little variety. So off to the Market I go.
It’s really not that far either. Kansas City has a way of making places seem farther away than they really are. In this case, the giant interstate highway bisecting City market from downtown doesn’t hurt. But another factor (here comes the speech) is the fact that people drive everywhere. 39th street and Westport? That’s basically the same neighborhood people, you can walk from one to the other. Plaza and UMKC? Same deal. Certainly some questionable urban planning makes it difficult to navigate the walk sometimes. On my way back from City Market across the highway bridge at Main street, i discovered that the sidewalk basically ends, dumping you off in the middle of an intersection. Since I survived, I’ll take the other side of the bridge next time. All this is just to say that it’s crazy how this city compartmentalizes its development initiatives. The City market is a modest success-why not make the relatively simple effort to facilitate moving from downtown to that area? Widen and pretty up the bridge walkways for starters.
Looks like I need to start an urban development blog. Ugh, I’ll leave that to everyone else in town. I’m here to talk about Carollo’s. So as I was saying 3 paragraphs ago, I had been here, but not really realized that they served sandwiches. i just thought it was a place where you bought sliced meat and cheese. But I noticed that their sign advertised sandwiches and went in. There is no real established protocol for ordering, you just sort of catch someone’s attention. They seem basically confined to the brief list of sandwiches they have on the board. The guy who prepared my lunch was a 20 year old who spent half the time making my food and half chatting up some girl who wasn’t even buying anything. That’s the way the world works I guess. Anyhow, the whole thing took forever, but the guy was pleasant enough.
I think they have some little tables in there, but it’s really a to-go affair at Carollo’s. If the weather is nice you can sit outside at one of the tables, or toss the little torpedo in your bag and head back to work. Really quite civilized. The sandwich was damned good too, but loverboy went a bit overboard on the olive oil.
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