The Italian Store

Last Thursday night, Ian and I were hanging out with Ian’s friend Chris. We were hungry and decided to get some take-out from the Italian Store, in Lion Village Shopping Center off Lee Highway in North Arlington. The Italian Store (website here) is somewhat of an institution in Arlington, and although I have spent a lot of time in the area, this is the first time I had ever been there. The store has all sorts of interesting Italian products in addition to the take-away food (there are a few tables outside). Some of the cheeses looked incredibly tempting; they had burrata and a marscapone gorgonzola that I had my eye on. The frozen food section looked incredible also.

Cheese Combo Sub (The Italian Store)

Ian and Chris shared a pizza with mushrooms and prosciuttio, but I was not feeling the pizza route, so I went with a sub. I ordered a Cheese combo sub (mozzarella, provolone, and havarti) with lettuce, onion, hot peppers, mayo and their house dressing. I normally don’t order both mayo and dressing, but this time it was a good time that I did, because there was hardly any of either on the sandwich. The hot peppers were very flavorful, though, so any bite that included them was really good. The serving of cheese was very generous and the quality seemed high. Generally, I liked it, although more dressing would have been a little nice.

The real complaint was the wait. When we called and ordered, we were told it would be 35 minutes. After about 30 minutes we headed over, but the pizza still wasn’t done (although my sandwich was). I had plenty of time to fully peruse the store, and then we still had to wait. All in all, the wait was around 50-55 minutes, which was excessive for one pizza and a sandwich, when they didn’t really seem that busy. The staff was rather disorganized and some didn’t seem like they were really doing anything.