On Orchard Street — where old New York still quietly lingers between new storefronts and crowded sidewalks — there’s a little sandwich shop called Regina’s Grocery that feels less like a business and more like walking into someone’s family home.
Roman Grandinetti, whose family roots trace back equally to Calabria and Naples, opened Regina’s Grocery on Orchard Street with his mother seven years ago, carrying with him the traditions, flavors, and pride passed down through generations. What started in Bensonhurst has now grown into multiple locations, with a new Lower East Side outpost opening soon. But despite the growth, Regina’s Grocery still feels deeply personal — intimate in the way only family-run Italian shops can.
Read Joanna Moeller's Regional Italian episodes one and two at Appetito Magazine.
When I visited Roman at the Orchard Street shop, he spoke about his mother, Regina, the woman the store is named after. Though she’s largely stepped out of the kitchen these days, her presence is everywhere — in the recipes, in the walls lined with family photographs, and in the spirit of the shop itself. Roman walked me through the faces framed throughout the restaurant, explaining who each relative was and how connected he feels to the traditions they carried with them from Italy.
“What they brought over,” he explained, “is what I try to continue.”
That feeling lives inside every sandwich.
Roman names each sandwich after a family member, tying their personalities and characteristics into the ingredients themselves — a detail that transforms the menu from something clever into something genuinely heartfelt. The sandwiches become stories. Small tributes to the people who shaped him.
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One of the standouts was a Calabrese-style fried eggplant sandwich that perfectly captured the soul of the shop: comforting, unfussy, deeply rooted in southern Italian flavor. Thin slices of eggplant are fried simply in extra virgin olive oil before being layered onto Italian bread with fresh mozzarella, roasted red peppers, arugula, and a punch of Calabrian chili for heat. Finished with balsamic and more olive oil, it’s the kind of sandwich that reminds you how powerful simplicity can be when every ingredient means something.
The first bite was messy in the best possible way — creamy mozzarella, silky eggplant, heat from the chili, peppery greens, sharp sweetness from the balsamic. It tasted like something passed down, not manufactured.
Roman described Orchard Street almost like a neighborhood from another era — “like Sesame Street,” he laughed, where every storefront has a purpose and personality. Regina’s Grocery fits into that landscape naturally. It feels like one of those rare New York places built more on heart than trend.
And maybe that’s what makes it memorable.
You leave feeling like you didn’t just stop in for a sandwich — you stepped briefly into someone’s family history.
