Specialty grocery is down to its last days
Bethel Park losing UnCommon Market
Janet Gralka once put it like this: “Groceries are in our blood.”
That was in 2007, after the death of her father, Joe Labriola. He grew up working in his Italian immigrant father’s grocery in Larimer before founding his Joseph Labriola Sausage Co. in the Strip District.
Janet Labriola, who grew up in an apartment above the original store, married Charles Gralka, who went on to run the sausage company. Then in 1978, the Upper St. Clair couple opened a groceria of their own — That Italian Place, on North Highland Road in Bethel Park, where they sold the “World Famous in Pittsburgh since 1927” sausage and other Old World specialties. And then in 1986, responding to customers’ hunger for foods from around the globe, they turned the store into the UnCommonMarket.
The steadily growing ranks of foodies from around the region, amateur and professional, could find top-quality and rare ingredients — mascarpone cheese, superfine sugar, argan oil, chia seeds, pebble beans, freekeh — or ask Ms. Gralka and her staff to find them.
Now, after four decades, the food landmark is closing. It was in a Jan. 29 post on the store’s Facebook page that the Gralkas thanked loyal customers and said the store would close forever at the end of business Feb. 25. As for inventory, as they say, “everything must go,” but in the meantime, the store still is selling its famous sausage, deli meats, breads, cannoli and other house-made foods.
Any food left, and there may not be any, will be donated to a food bank. The fixtures and equipment will be auctioned online by Fred Peters Auctioneers later this spring. Even though they’re
retiring from the market, the Gralkas will continue to make the sausage, which retail customers will be able to find at other nearby outlets, including Family Deli in Bethel Park and Trax Farms near Finleyville.
Ms. Gralka was explaining all this to some regular customers Sunday afternoon who came in after church to shop and say goodbye.
“We’re going to miss you guys,” one man said.
“It has been a wonderful ride,” a woman said.
Ms. Gralka doesn’t disagree with those sentiments, but after 40 years on these concrete floors, her feet hurt.
“We’re ready to go,” she said.
Theywere hoping to go quietly, but that ship has sailed, just thanks to word of mouth. After informing staffers and telling them they could talk about it, “the South Hills moms blew up,” she said.
There’s a “Thank you for 40 years” sign atop the corner landmark, but Ms. Gralka wanted to say one from her heart.
“We were way ahead of our time just because our customers made us that way,” she said, recalling how they didn’t think they would be able to sell their first 10 pounds of quinoa when most Pittsburghers hadn’t heard of it.
At the end they were selling nearly a dozen different kinds of this formerly exotic grain, which now shows up in all sorts of products.
The small market is across Washington Road/ Route 19 from not just a Giant Eagle Market District but also grocery-selling Target, and in between newer Fresh Market and Whole Foods. But Ms. Gralka has been explaining to some customers what she has always said — that the competition didn’t hurt their market, but rather helped it. All the food shoppers who flowed past meant more would stop there, too.
As Ms. Gralka told one customer, “We had our best year last year!”
Besides, as regulars would agree, “there’s no place like this,” she said.
Children can count on getting a complimentary cookie. Even as the display cases and shelves are showing bare spots, it’s impossible to not get hungry walking the aisles full of colorful foods and containers from many countries. The whole place smells like an ethnic holiday.
One regular customer, Bill Talerico, was so upset to learn that the market is closing that he wanted to buy it, but his wife, Suzee, told him that’s not going to happen. But after Mass, the Upper St. Clair couple and their daughter, Jeana, were doing the next best thing — filling a cart with treats, including their Sunday afternoon repast of capicola, mortadella, prosciutto, salami and more, plus goodies ranging from baking sprinkles to roasted-fava beans.
“We discovered cerignola olives here,” Mr. Talerico reminisced before the ladies checked out — to the tune of $215.37.
“That is not normal,” Mrs. Talerico felt she had to explain.
But clerk Menzie Althoff says lots of customers have been stocking up while they still can.
Even Ms. Gralka said doesn’t know where she’s going to get her red sauce after she runs through her reserves.
“I don’t like anyone else’s sauce.”