Como Deli Falls Best Dining Bargain?

The Como Deli, located at 2220 Pine Ave., has, as many people know, an outstanding  menu of readymade pastas and Italian dinners at modest prices.

The menu, for example, offers cheese ravioli dinners with meatball, sausage and fresh baked roll for $8.75, or chicken cacciatore with macaroni and a roll for $8.95.

Pizza, subs, salads, manicotti, eggplant parmigiana, veal parmigiana and a host of other ready-to-eat cooked foods are there.

In some respects, it is easier to decide what to have and actually better than a menu to see the food, under the glass of the steam tables with the aroma of Italian seasonings wafting through the deli. In addition to cooked foods, there are baked goods from the Como bakery, sauces, pastas, meat and Italian items for takeout.

At the end of the menu is a little asterisk for the Como Deli's "End of the day special."

From 7:30 until 8 each night, a half hour before the deli closes, every cooked item in the place is sold at half price.

A plate of gnocci is  $4.13, cheese lasagna $4.85. The roast beef dinner, with potato, vegetable and fresh rolls, is $4.48. Beef stew is $4.63.

A family of four can dine for less than $20 and each can have their own choice of more than 20 different dinners.

The deli is open from 10 a. m.  to 8 p. m.

Lou Antonacci, who runs the deli, said that before he started his half-price special he would take whatever was left of the cooked dishes home, because each day the deli prepares everything fresh.

Now, at the end of the day, he has boosted sales by offering everyone half price on cooked dishes, while they last. Usually they don't. As word spread, people came in droves.

Actually some even come in early and wait for the clock to strike 7:30. Then they get in line and order.

Food this good and at these prices deserves more than mere accolades. The customers showed, as they lined up with hungry faces to get delicious food at half price, that they appreciated it better than any words they could have said.