Di Rienzo's Grocery

Di Rienzo's started feeding people almost by accident. When sewer construction tore up Beech Street and made it hard for shoppers to reach the little family grocer, the family answered with prepared food — sandwiches built to order across the same counter that sold deli meats, cheeses, and Italian staples. The improvisation stuck. Decades on, the grocery in Ottawa's Little Italy is known less for what sits on its shelves than for what comes off that counter: the famous Di Rienzo sandwich, ordered by number and carried back out the door.

The order most regulars reach for is the Classic Italian Sandwich #14 — soppressata Calabrese, extra-hot capicollo, prosciutto cotto, and Havarti, with lettuce and mayo holding it together. The #16 turns up the heat with hot capicollo, provolone, and mustard. Past the numbered classics, the custom builds carry the family's fingerprints. The Paradise di Paolo stacks mortadella, salami, and capicollo under provolone and olive oil; Alexi's Diavolo runs hot capicollo and soppressata against spicy Havarti and marinated eggplant; Il Giardino di Eva drops the meat entirely for eggplant, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes. Spicy pickled eggplant is the topping the counter is quietly known for, and the choose-your-own path means no two orders have to match.

The hot side of the counter is its own argument for coming back. Chicken parmigiana arrives as a breaded cutlet under light tomato sauce and mozzarella; porchetta comes with grilled red peppers; homemade lasagna is layered with béchamel, and the rigatoni lands in a plain tomato sauce dusted with Parmigiano and Romano. Then there are the cannoli, filled to order with ricotta, cream, or chocolate-and-vanilla — the sweet finish nobody skips. The pasta and hot-sandwich lists shift with the day, posted as what's available rather than as standing deals. Add the meals to go and the catering trays, and a single counter covers a quick lunch, a weeknight dinner, and a tray for a crowd.

Everything about the place is built for takeout rather than lingering. There is no indoor seating; the shop runs cash only, with an ATM by the deli case; and an online order page lets a customer set a pickup time and walk in to a bag already packed. The pricing is deliberate — a classic sandwich runs about ten dollars, tax in — and the family has long made a point of keeping it there. What looks like a grocery store with a sandwich habit is really a system: pick the meats, the cheese, the bread, and the toppings, and the kitchen builds it, fast enough to clear a lunch lineup at full tilt.

The grocery opened in 1973, a few years after Iole Di Rienzo and her family immigrated to Canada in 1967, and she ran it as a neighbourhood grocer before the sandwiches took over the place's reputation. Her son Paolo Di Rienzo carries it now, and that hand-off from one generation to the next is part of why local reporting keeps calling the storefront an institution rather than just an old shop. The fiftieth anniversary passed a few years back with the lineups still forming for panini, fresh pasta, and the Italian goods that filled the shelves long before #14 had a number.

A working grocery doesn't usually become the reason people cross town, but Di Rienzo's did, and the sandwiches keep the logic intact: named for the family, priced for the everyday, and built one order at a time. The shelves of Italian goods are still there behind the counter, doing the quiet work a neighbourhood grocer has always done. The same name has hung over the door for half a century, and the grocery and the sandwich counter still share it. Out front, the line forms for the sandwiches.