Adobe Stock / Kristina Blokhin
Ever wonder why there are so many A&S delis in the county? We did, so we dug into the origin story behind the popular name.
There are six delis with the name A&S in the county (a Millwood A&S closed in July 2021, so not too long ago the number was seven), plus numerous others in Fairfield and north Jersey. What gives? Why name your business so similarly to another in the same industry in the same area?
The first thought is that it’s a mini-franchise, yet the delis each have different complete names, e.g., A&S Fine Foods, A&S Marketplace, A&S Pork Store and Fine Foods, etc.
A certain amount of internet research, phone calls, and emails unraveled the mystery — to a degree (not every owner/manager got back to us, so we had to rely on info from staff in some cases). The original A&S was a pork store opened in Brooklyn circa 1948 by a man named Anthony Scicchitano. (FYI: A pork store is a butcher shop that also sells to-go prepared food and/or specialty items that grocery chains don’t have.) At least some of the Westchester A&S stores seemed to have spawned directly from this original (Yonkers in 1980 being the first, then Thornwood, followed by the defunct Millwood), but it’s not clear if any of these three were ever owned by Scicchitano.
To make things less clear, all the delis have similar logos, while others have essentially the exact same logo as another: A&S Fine Food in Port Chester, A&S Fine Foods in Croton, and A&S Marketplace in Mount Kisco; also, A*S Fine Foods in Thornwood and A&S Pork Store and Fine Foods in Jefferson Valley. Yet, each of those delis told us they are not affiliated with any other deli and are separately owned.
What we can say with high certainty is they all rate as varying degrees of good to very good to great (thus, five of the six were included in this feature).
We would suggest, however, that the next person who wants to open a pork store/Italian-style deli here run up the alphabet and pick some new letters.
Related: How to Schedule Meals Around a Workout in Westchester
