As food prices skyrocket, owner of Winter Hill icon tries to hold on

By George P. Hassett

When Tony Masci increased the price of a loaf of bread by 24 cents at Maria's Cold Cuts on Broadway, he heard about it from his customers.

“There were a lot of complaints in broken English and Italian lingo” from the older customers, he said.

Masci was the guest at the May 2 Somerville News contributors meeting. He said he bought the business in February 2008, just in time to see the price of wheat, flour and Romano cheese “skyrocket.”

“Everything I need has gone up about 30 percent” in the last three months, he said. In addition, vendors have begun charging for the gas they used when delivering to him.

“We're trying to hang in,” he said. Masci said family members have helped by coming into work without taking a paycheck and he has added wraps, chickens and turkeys for the young professionals of the neighborhood.

He also said the economic downturn has made potential customers a little tighter with a dollar. “I get the sense that people are saving their money to pay for gas right now,” he said.

Masci bought the business, after working for Polaroid and IBM for 30 years, because of the name. “Maria's is an icon in Winter Hill,” he said.

He said adding daily specials and stocking customer favorites should keep his business afloat for a while. And he has one more secret: “My mom makes a pot of her pasta vazul every week.”

Comments

[SCAT]

It's unfortunate that people are suffering due to mistakes and inaction of every facet of our government over the last 35 years.
~We refuse to drill our own oil from the midwest and from Alaska.
~We have refused to develop alternative sources of energy (including solar, wind, and nuclear power).
~We virtually eliminated the rail system in this country, putting more traffic on our roads, more pollution in our air, and using more fuel along the way.
When will the elected representives of 'we, the people' wake up and start to turn this situation around? Drilling our own oil could solve this problem for years while we use the time for research and development of alternative sources of energy.

[thenoseknows]

ya thats right and another thing......you must mean pasta fagiole....or pasta fasule.

[Pete]

No, the writer is correct,Pasta vazul ..look it up