In a relatively young city like Los Angeles, not many places have been open for more than 90 years, and even fewer have been open that long while staying relatively under the radar. Eastside Italian Deli is a delicious exception, having been around in the neighborhood that is now known as Victor Heights since 1929 (though it originally opened as Eastside Market).
A small neighborhood between Chinatown and Echo Park, Victor Heights is often called the “Forgotten Edge,” but it was once home to a community of Italian immigrants who shopped at places like Eastside Market on a regular basis. These days, Eastside Italian Deli gets a steady stream of diners on weekday afternoons, from blue collar workers to high school students on summer break. The deli’s selection of hot and cold sandwiches start at $13 and they’re generously portioned – more than enough for people to refuel for their second half of the workday.
Although Victor Heights is often deemed “forgotten,” Eastside Deli gets a lot of business from L.A.’s workforce coming in to grab lunch. The deli is conveniently located 1.5 miles away from the city’s City Hall, the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and the Los Angeles Fire Department. It’s also only one mile away from Dodger Stadium. The area around the register and deli counters are decorated with old signs of the neighborhood and Dodger Stadium. Vintage photographs of downtown Los Angeles and its denizens line the wall of the no-frills dining room.
A line already forms by 11:30 a.m. on weekdays at the deli. Officers in uniform wait for their sandwiches while groups of office workers eat their lunch in the dining room. They don’t have to wait long – the staff efficiently builds every sandwich, wrapping it in wax paper and cutting it in half.
Founders Domenic Pontrelli and Joe Campagna originally opened the market at a different location but moved it to the Victor Heights location in 1929. At some point there were four Italian markets in the neighborhood, but by 1965, Eastside Market was the only one left standing. The market’s survival is partly attributable to their partnership with Pontrelli & Laricchia Sausage Company, started by Domenic’s son Sam Pontrelli, and his son-in-law, Gaetano Laricchia. The sausage company opened inside the market but also did a lot of wholesale business.
Johnny Angiuli began working at Eastside Market in 1959 as a clean-up boy and eventually moved to the butcher section. His brother, Frank Angiuli, worked as a delivery driver. In 1974, the two brothers purchased Eastside Market when Pontrelli & Laricchia Sausage Company (now known as Maestro Sausage Company) decided to move to a larger facility. The Angiulis turned the focus of the market to the deli, as well as catering, which led to Eastside Italian Deli as we know it today.
The deli is run now by Johnny Angiuli’s three sons: Anthony, Rocco, and Vito. Anthony Angiuli says that when people started going to larger corporate-owned grocery stores like Ralphs and Albertsons, “What kept the business going…is our sandwiches.”
The most ordered hot sandwich is Sandwich No. 7, which is stuffed to the brim with both roast beef and pastrami, along with cheese, peppers, and tomato sauce (we don’t recommend trying to eat this in your car). The sandwich was something that Johnny Angiuli created back in the 1970s. “He thought, why not put roast beef and pastrami together. It ended up being the most popular sandwich,” Anthony says. And then there’s the tomato sauce that they drizzle in between the bread. “Nobody would ever have thought to put pastrami in sauce, but my father said, why can’t we put it in sauce and give it an Italian flavor with tomato?” Anthony continues, “It actually is pretty impressive how the pastrami sitting in the sauce just adds so much flavor.”
If you want to go a step further, the “D.A. Special” adds sausage and meatballs on top of all this. The meatballs are made in-house with a mix of pork and beef. Don’t worry, you can also get a sub with just the Italian meatballs.
The cold sandwiches are great for lunches to go. The Italian cold cut sandwich is layered with provolone, mortadella, capicola, salami, and ham. The generous spread of mayonnaise and mustard between the bread and lettuce makes it a little messy, but still worth it.
The deli closes at 4 p.m., so the business, which always relied heavily on office lunches, was hit hard when the Covid-19 pandemic began. “When the pandemic came, that was a game changer, because everybody ended up staying home and nobody was working in L.A.,” says Anthony Angiuli, “but what kept us alive was that the Dodger Stadium was turned into a testing site, and then into a vaccination site. Thousands of people that went to get vaccinated or to get tested would come to the deli to get something to eat.”
Even when businesses reopened after the pandemic shutdown, the Angiuli brothers had to find a different clientele. Although a lot of people did go back to the office, the daytime lunch rush is just not what it used to be. So Eastside Deli turned to social media and the team started posting videos to their Instagram feed. Eventually, each reel garnered hundreds of thousands of views, helping to bring in a younger crowd. “You got the younger generation, that’s a big help,” says Anthony, “Today, I don’t know what it is…I guess in the new generation, everybody’s foodies.”
Now that social media has helped to get them busy again, they’re slowing down those efforts to focus on the work at the deli itself. “It took a lot of years for my father and my uncle to get it where it was at because it was all word of mouth,” Anthony explains, “My father didn’t really believe in advertising, so it just took hard work to be where this business is today.”
For decades, the deli has survived as a business in a primarily residential area. Tucked just behind the 110 freeway, it doesn’t get a lot of foot or car traffic. Most of the customers who come here already knew about it somehow.
At any rate, between their loyal clientele, new customers from social media, and word of mouth, business has bounced back since the pandemic. At 95 years old, the deli is thriving. “I think, today, business is much better than it was before Covid,” Anthony concludes. We certainly hope to see another century of sandwiches from Eastside Italian Deli.
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