A MARKET FOR MERRIMENT

While working as a copywriter for Adcom Communications in downtown Cleveland in the late 1990s, I had the pleasure of doing lunchtime business with the delightful Catania brothers. I pitched an idea for a feature article to the Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine, and the following ran sometime in about 1998.

David Searls


Tommy’s in high gear by the time the lunch crowd strolls in—the construction workers, administrative assistants and executives who pick up to-go orders of pasta and Sammy’s "seven layers of love" eggplant, or grab one of the few kitchen-type tables by the window of the Cleveland Warehouse District’s Sixth Street Market.

"Take ‘em, take ‘em," Tommy, 40, the youngest and heftiest, Catania brother, shouts to one and all regarding a seasonal candy display. "My kids need food and my mistress wants a new car."

When a customer shows interest in an Italian sub piled so high it’s safer deconstructed and eaten with a fork, Tommy insists, "Go Italian and you’ll never go back. That’s what my third wife used to say."

Sammy Catania, the oldest brother at 46, doesn’t try to keep up with Tommy’s non-stop patter, but occasionally chimes in with "Lane thirteen now open, no waiting," while manning the store’s second of two cash registers.

Ross, 42, with half the girth of either of his brothers and none of the outrageousness, mostly keeps to the command center of the wholesale and retail liquor operation, in the basement. When he hustle to the front for one reason or another he looks mildly distracted, as if trying to mentally calculate profit/loss figures. Ross was, for twenty years, one of the best medical malpractice court reporters in Cleveland, according to his brothers. Attention to detail is everything to him, which cements his place in the family operation.

"We’re three legs of a stool," Tommy explains. "Sammy’s the creative, flamboyant one (though an outsider might assign that personality trait to Tommy himself), Ross is the methodical thinker, and I’m the hard-edged one. I do the books."

"Yeah, we can’t afford a Girl Friday," says Sammy, "so we put a blonde wig on him at five o’clock."

Now that’s a scary thought. Tommy is an immense, well-fed man who could arm-wrestle steers. He’s got a tiger tattoo sprawled over one massive forearm and a dragon on the other, a menagerie in honor of his two kids that must have deprived the parlor of a month’s supply of ink. But you could get the wrong idea about Tommy’s background from his appearance. He used to be vice president of an engineering firm before trading in his suits and ties for a white butcher’s apron and undershirt.

Back then, he’d spend months of the year in Asia, selling vehicular emissions testing equipment. "When I got back, my kids’d be two feet taller. Now, if I want to take the afternoon off to go to my son’s wrestling tournament, I go."

Despite the banter about mistresses and wives, Tommy’s been married to his high school sweetheart for 21 years, virtually the same amount of time brother Sammy’s spent wed to his own high school girlfriend.

"Rossie met his wife in a bar," Sammy cackles, to Tommy’s delight at the incongruity of the levelheaded brother having the raciest love life. Then Sammy feels compelled to add, "She’s a teacher, teaches handicapped kids. Great lady."

The Sixth Street Market sprang into existence as the result of three brothers growing up in a big, noisy household with five other siblings in Garfield Heights and threatening for years to go into business together. "I worked my entire career for brothers who made lots of money, so why shouldn’t we?" is how Tommy puts it.

The type of business was determined, more than anything else, by the background of the oldest of the three, the namesake partner in the legendary Sammy’s in the Flats. After selling out of that partnership, Sammy co-owned Cuisines at Playhouse Square and ran catering companies, commissaries and a restaurant consulting firm. With food serving as the backdrop to Sammy’s life, perhaps it was inevitable that he and his brothers would see untapped potential in the rapid residential expansion going on in the Warehouse District by the mid-nineties.

The 3,000 square-foot market is the closest the district has—and probably ever will have—to a supermarket, given the limitations of commercial space. But it’s a whole lot more than merely an oversized convenience store, with its tiny commercial kitchen in back and the catering and wholesale liquor operation and the coffee kiosk they just opened in the Bridgeview Building on West 9th.

Tommy gleefully points out that their place of business was a 30-booth porn shop before they took over. "This is where you used to come all the time," he bellows to an unsuspecting customer in a ballcap. "I got you on tape." Then he punctuates his comment with an obscene thrust of his ample hips, just in case he’s been too subtle.

The man at least has the presence of mind to mumble, ""So how’d you know I was there?"

The good-natured abuse is, according to Sammy, what keeps customers coming back to the Sixth Street Market for their breakfasts, deli sandwiches and entrees, fresh fruits and vegetables, beer, wine, liquor, household cleaners, lottery tickets, and even to drop off their dry cleaning.

"We crack a few jokes, have a little fun," he says. "Our parents taught us to smile. Whoa! What a concept."

But that doesn’t mean business has been full-time chuckles. Tommy admits with uncharacteristic seriousness, "It was a nightmare for the first two years."

The brothers found that the neighborhood was too transient to build an ongoing trade back in ’96. Executives relocated for a few weeks or months in the various corporate housing units scattered in the area were instantly smitten. The market reminded them of neighborhood places back home in Boston or New York, but there weren’t enough of the out-of-towners, and each would eventually leave. As for the locals, the Catanias couldn’t even attract many residents of the 94-unit Grand Arcade condominium that shares their building.

They sent our fliers, asking their neighbors what they needed in a market.

"For one lady we even carried a specific brand of dog food for her poodles," says Sammy. They’ve also been known to open early or close late to accommodate customers. "And we haven’t raised coffee prices in four years," Sammy adds.

While they don’t expect to turn a profit until next year—their fifth in business—the Catanias are at least starting to smell the French bread at the end of the tunnel. The gradual turnaround is due to a little creativity in product offering. When the State of Ohio got out of the liquor business in 1997, the brothers got a vendor license and filled their back shelves and 3,000 square feet of basement with beer, wine and the harder stuff. Today, they’re one of the largest liquor wholesalers in northeast Ohio, with a customer list that includes the Cleveland Browns and the Cavs. They also cater meals right to the departing charter planes of visiting professional sports teams, and last Christmas they prepared 4,000 corporate gift baskets. All through word of mouth. When they added a couple tables and some chairs to the front of the store and started putting tables out front during the mild months, they attracted dine-in customers they hadn’t had before.

Things are different, now. The brothers have steadily developed a stable of regulars, including Suzanne Drake of Shaker Heights who works at the Employers’ Resource Council on West 9th.

"These guys treat us like family," says Drake. "We make office runs every day because they’ve got the best food in the entire district."

All of those office runs keep the brothers and their five full-time and two part-time employees busy. "The sandwich god of downtown," as Tommy’s known to brother Sammy, spends an hour and a half in the morning and just as long in the afternoon to keep the sandwich case filled. All of the brothers get an early start. "If we get in at five, that’s late," says Tommy.

Fan favorites include the meatloaf, the eggplant and the two-inch-thick pork chops for five bucks. As for the chicken broccolini, "We’ve had customers send couriers from Westlake and Beachwood to pick it up," says Tommy.

Success, the brothers are learning, is really quite simple. According to Sammy, you just have to "give a valued product for a fair price, and they will come. I think Moses said that."