Back in October, Boar's Head decided to try their hand at a retail shop in Downtown Brooklyn with the old-timey sounding and looking "F. Martinella" deli. I guess people weren't eating enough hoagies to cover the $125 a foot rent, 'cause I passed by there this morning and saw guys loading unopened blocks of ham and turkey into a truck. On the way home, my suspicions were confirmed when I saw the windows taped over. Despite the misleading claim that they had been in business since 1949 (Boar's Head was actually started in 1903, and if you count the kiosk at JFK, F. Martinella had been in business only a few years, tops), they actually lasted only 10 months. Ha ha! But is anyone surprised? The food was bland and the neighborhood didn't need another deli (let alone one that was way too fancy for its own britches).
Don't let the neighborhood hit you on the way out, and good riddance.
And just for the record, this is our second food-related scoop concerning the block of Court Street between State and Schermerhorn
[photo credits: brownstoner.com and comestibles.com]
