Ferraro’s Market has only been on Universal Drive since 2021, but plenty of the shoppers at its meat case knew it long before it came to North Haven. The family has been selling meat in Greater New Haven since 1952, first on State Street, then for nearly 50 years on Grand Avenue, and now in the North Haven Commons plaza next to Target.
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Here is how the family market made the move, who is behind the counter today, what shoppers say and what to buy.
Mohawk Market, then Grand Avenue
The story begins with Salvatore Ferraro, born in 1928 in Bristol to parents who had come from Naples, according to Walk New Haven, a neighborhood history project. He used his training in the meat business to become a co-owner of the Mohawk Market on State Street in New Haven in 1952. In 1973, as urban renewal reshaped the neighborhood, Sal and his wife, Joan, opened Ferraro’s Market on Grand Avenue, directly across from Farnam Courts, Walk New Haven says.
“My father and mother had four boys, and all of us grew up in the store,” Peter Ferraro told the New Haven Register in a 2022 story the market reposted on its website. The eldest son, Sal Jr., ran the business until he died in 2010 at 49, and his brothers Peter, John and Mark kept it going. Walk New Haven describes Peter as running the business side while John and Mark worked “on the saw.” By 2020 the market had 100 employees, half of them family, and Sal Jr.’s daughter Victoria, who started working there at 14, had begun using social media to promote its specials, according to the project.
The family is still in charge. Connecticut business records list Peter, John and Mark Ferraro as officers of Ferraro’s Foodland of New Haven, Inc., a company first registered in 1974 that now lists its address as 210 Universal Drive North. In May, the market marked 14 years since Salvatore Ferraro’s passing with a post on Instagram: “Watch over him the way he always watched over us.”
Why North Haven
Ferraro’s closed its Grand Avenue store in December 2020 and opened in North Haven on April 28, 2021, according to Walk New Haven.
Peter told the Register the family had fielded offers over the years to move to “six or eight different towns,” and that First Selectman Michael Freda convinced them to come to North Haven. Being near Target helps bring in traffic, he said. At 6,400 square feet, the new store is less than half the size of the old one. “It’s easier, nicer. It’s less stress,” Peter said. “You enjoy coming to work.”
The market kept its full meat selection and trimmed the grocery aisles, aiming to carry one brand of every essential, Peter told the Register. “A lot of the customers followed us,” he said.
The people behind the counter
The market’s whole pitch is its butchers. Its website takes a swipe at “so-called butcher shops that actually do not have a butcher on the premises” and says Ferraro’s keeps at least three butchers cutting red meat at all times. The family’s motto, also on the site: “Buy direct, save and pass the savings onto our customers.”
This spring, the market’s Instagram introduced some of the crew. “Mark’s on the knife, the case is full, and Robert’s got your dinner ready to go,” one April post said. Another credited Paul, who has run the seafood counter for the past five years: “If you’ve had seafood from Ferraro’s North Haven, you’ve had Paul to thank.” The website says the fish comes from New York’s Fulton Fish Market every other day.
Long tenure is part of the draw. In the 2022 Register story, store manager Al Lauro said he had been with Ferraro’s for more than 15 years. “Employees just don’t leave. They become family,” he said. Todd Gibson, then nearing 34 years with the market, said customers sometimes told him they remembered him from the New Haven store when they were kids. “They’re the best people I ever worked for,” he said of the Ferraros.
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What shoppers say
Ferraro’s has a 4.4-star rating from about 309 Google reviews.
Adati called it a “new favorite grocery store” with the “best deals I have seen for quality and quantity of produce,” while warning that “it is a pretty tight store so not so easy to stroll around.” April kept it short: “They been here for decades. Good price and staff is helpful. Fresh meat, chicken and veggies.”
Testimonials posted on the market’s website tell a similar story. Amanda wrote that “every time we go in, the butcher remembers exactly what my order is,” and Nina said she has shopped there since the family’s New Haven days and was happy to see the store come to North Haven.
Not every review is a rave. A few recent Google reviewers complained about how a phone call and a return at the register were handled. And prices have moved with the times. “When prices go up, we have to go up,” Peter told the Register in 2022.
What to buy
Ferraro’s franks. The house franks come in natural casing, skinless “Big Bites,” Georgia Hots, cheese franks and kielbasa franks, sold in one-, three- and five-pound packages, according to the website. Its own sales pitch: “Once you go FERRARO’S you never go back.”
Stuffed pinwheel steaks. Beef pinwheels rolled with spinach and mozzarella, ready for the oven. The market posted them at $13.99 a pound in May.
Something from Paul’s seafood case. Stuffed salmon pinwheels like these sit alongside fresh fillets, and the website lists stuffed sole, stuffed shrimp and stuffed clams among its ready-to-cook seafood.
Heat-and-serve dinners from Ferraro’s Kitchen. The website lists dishes such as Sunday sauce, vodka sauce, eggplant Parmesan, chicken Marsala and porchetta with broccoli rabe. “Made fresh in our kitchen, stocked on the shelves, and ready to take home,” a September Instagram post said.
Ready-to-cook stuffed meats. Stuffed chicken breasts, stuffed pork chops and marinated meats fill the ready-to-cook case for nights when you want dinner without the prep.
This week’s specials. The flyer the market posted for Thursday, Oct. 15, through Wednesday, Oct. 21, includes stuffed boneless pork chops in flavors such as apple-raisin, cornbread and bacon & cheddar ($4.99 a pound), Ferraro’s chicken Italian sausage ($4.99 a pound), Ferraro’s Kitchen crab cakes (three for $6.99), braciola meat and London broil ($6.99 a pound each) and nine-packs of Matlaw’s stuffed clams ($6.99).
If you go
- Where: 210 Universal Drive North, North Haven, next to Target
- Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.; closed Sunday, according to its website
- Phone: (203) 776-3462
- Online: ferraromarket.com and @ferrarosmarket on Instagram
Prices are from the market’s website, Instagram and weekly flyer and may change.
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