Exclusive | Brooklyn pork store’s closure after 55 years underscores sad exodus of beloved Italian mainstays: ‘We didn’t leave you — you left us’

After 55 years as a tasty Italian hallmark of Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood, Bari Pork Store is cutting its last slice of gabagool on Saturday, June 29. 

“It feels like I’m losing a big part of my life,” co-owner George Firrantello told The Post of the impending closure of the beloved shop, which first opened in 1969 on 18th Avenue.

Firantello said he had no choice but to say ciao.

“Some of my customers coming in are devastated,” Firrantello said. “They say, ‘Oh, you guys are leaving us.’ No, no, no. We didn’t leave you — you left us.” 

Firantello is referring to the changing demographics of Bensonhurst, which was once flourishing with Italian-American businesses and the clientele to match.

Just this month, right up the street from Bari, another neighborhood hallmark, SAS Italian Records, also played its final song. It opened in 1967.

“These days, there’s just not enough customers coming into the place,” Firantello said of his exit after running Bari for the past 26 years alongside partner Tony Turrigiano, the latter putting in 37 years of pork-store service. 

“It means a lot to me that the store has meant a lot to a lot of people. I know kids who came in who now have kids of their own,” Firantello said. “We’ve fed a lot of families over the course of the years.”

But an exodus of customers isn’t the only headwind Firrantello has fought.

“Running the store has just gotten more expensive, between the rent, electricity, insurance, payroll tax, and so on and so forth,” he said.

Their heartbroken landlord even offered to reduce the rent to keep the store in business. 

“But it still would have been too high,” said Firrantello. “In my head, I’m saying, ‘How much could you reduce it? $500? What would $500 do for me?’”

The partners also looked into selling the business. But according to Firrantello, “Nobody was really interested.”

That underscores a big shift for the area.

When it comes to Italian pork stores, the titular animal is more colloquial as they tend to sell everything from sandwiches to pantry items, breadcrumbs, olives, cheese and the like.

“Pork stores are a staple of many Italian-American communities, especially here in the Northeast,” Anthony “Tony Mangia” Scillia, a New Jersey-based influencer who highlights Italian businesses across the tri-state area, told The Post.

“The butchers and proprietors usually know their customers on a first-name basis,” said Scillia.  

Perhaps that’s why famous faces, including “The Sopranos” vets Steve Schirripa and the late Tony Sirico, were fans of Bari in particular, Firrantello said.

“They have a connection to the community. When you went into the store they knew your order,” Scillia explained. “And to be honest, the quality of the items in these stores are always far superior to the big supermarkets.”

Bari is especially known for its luscious, fresh mozzarella along with plump, signature sausages, the recipe for which is sailing into the sunset as well.

“I’m gonna take that with me,” a steadfast Firrantello said.

While there are seemingly thriving shops — including Faccio’s Italian Specialties’ multiple locations around the city, the ever-busy Emily’s Pork Store in Williamsburg and Calabria Pork Store on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx — old-school pork stores are becoming a dying breed even beyond Firrantello’s neighborhood.

G. Esposito and Sons Pork Store in Carroll Gardens closed in 2023 after 100 years in business, while the decades-old Mario’s Butcher Store on Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Avenue shuttered in 2022 after the death of its eponymous owner, Mario Zollo. 

Over in Little Italy, the 130-year-old Alleva Dairy said arrivederci last year as well. 

German pork stores also aren’t immune to the trend, with Ridgewood’s Morscher’s Pork Store closing in 2024 after seven decades. Meanwhile, the restaurant Zum Stammtisch’s pork store offshoot, open since 2011, shut its doors earlier this year as well.

“It makes me feel terrible, but what can we do?” said Sicilia. 

“If we don’t go back to the old neighborhoods and support these places, what choice do they really have? Many of the younger generations are not following in their parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps when it comes to pork stores or even old school red sauce joints.”

Ray Guarini, who runs the popular Instagram account Italian Enclaves and is author of the book “New York City’s Italian Neighborhoods,” helped announce Bari’s closure.

At the time, he called it “the hardest video in our many years of documenting Italian neighborhoods and businesses.”

“The area changed so drastically, we just can’t keep up anymore,” said Turrigiano in a video.  

Noted one commenter of many who bemoaned the loss: “This is heartbreaking, I will always remember going here with my dad.”

“A lot of people have expressed their sadness about it, and I’m saddened myself,” Guarini told The Post. 

“But I admire them. What they have done all of these years by preserving the business as a living piece of our culture is commendable.”

However, don’t expect much fanfare when Firrantello locks Bari’s door for the last time: He has no big plans for the final day. 

“Hopefully it goes fast, and then I just wanna walk away and take a nice picture outside with my partner,” he said. 

“Then Monday, I’m probably gonna stay home with my wife and enjoy a couple of weeks with her. And then go look for a job.”