Column: An Italian Restaurant Becomes a Grocery Store and Cooking Consultant Rolled in One

Pappardella has changed its business for the world.

By Linda E. Goodman

Upper West Siders are desperate to find stores spacious enough to allow 6 feet of distance between people, delivery services that will take our calls and make deliveries in less than three days, greenmarkets, and anything else to help us avoid shopping in closely packed spaces.

Today, I want to tell you about the new option I have discovered.

As the pandemic engendered a new way of life, I took a walk along Columbus Avenue. At Pappardella on Columbus and 75th Street, one of my favorite restaurants, I noticed a hand-written sign on the door. It read: “WE SELL GROCERIES. (212) 595 7996.” This was in addition to selling their entire Italian menu for take-out, pick-up or delivery.

So I called. I asked about vegetables. I asked about chicken. I even asked about paper towels! “Yes” to all. So I placed an order which was delivered in less than 3 hours.

Arthur Frommer would have called this “a real find!” The general manager answered the phone, took my order, even offered to sell me TP ! What I received was thrilling! (Forgive me – I like to cook). There were beautiful chicken breasts, thick, green asparagus, a big bag of arugula, great goat cheese, scrumptious biscotti. These were restaurant-quality foods, at very competitive prices.

I will shop only here for the duration of the pandemic, and not just because the food is superb. Every time I called, the people on the phone have been helpful, knowledgeable, gracious. They are waitresses turned food consultants! They know at once if they have rosemary but but no thyme, chicken but no lamb. I know I am talking to real human beings.

Here is a business that could easily have gone belly up. But thanks to the creativity and energy of its management, they turned what might have been a financial disaster into a bright, new resource for hungry New Yorkers!