Cousin Vinny's Sandwich Co. to move from ghost kitchen to North Hyde Park restaurant
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Aug 1, 2023

A New York sandwich shop that launched as a ghost kitchen earlier this year will open a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Tampa’s North Hyde Park.

Cousin Vinny’s Sandwich Co. has signed a lease for the former Cass Street Deli space at 1331 W. Cass St., said AJ DeSimone, a partner in Cousin Vinny’s. The new location, DeSimone said, should open before year’s end.

The investment in the new location will be just over $250,000, and it will employ 20 to 30 people. Tampa-based Palori Properties is the landlord.

The North Hyde Park restaurant is next door to Santoro’s Pizzeria, which serves New Jersey-style pizza.

“It brings a little Italy type of vibe to the NoHo area,” DeSimone said, “and it’s great because there’s a massive demographic of Northeastern individuals at The University of Tampa.”

DeSimone is a UT alum, along with chef and partner Vinny Andriotti and partner Jake Schmidt. The fourth partner and head of operations, Russell Leone, was a managing partner at Fresh Kitchen locations in Boca Raton and Sarasota. The partners are also backed by a few local veteran restaurateurs who are also offering insight on operations, though DeSimone declined to identify them.

Cousin Vinny’s opened on North Nebraska Avenue in March — only for pickup or delivery orders placed via the shop’s website. It doesn’t use third-party apps like DoorDash or Uber Eats. It’s only open on weekends, for 12 hours a week, and its weekly sales are around $22,000, DeSimone said.

“We were really only able to push sandwiches and bags of chips,” he said.

But people kept coming back, and Cousin Vinny’s started to notice repeat customers. And those customers weren’t finding themselves anywhere fancy: There’s a shelf in a hallway where they can retrieve their online orders, which was the extent of the experience.

“We noticed that people were willing to spend money — almost $18 — on a sandwich from basically a commissary kitchen,” DeSimone said. “It was like, ‘Wow, people are really coming out here going to these obscure ways of trying to get the food and doing it every single weekend,’ which is amazing.”

The menu will expand in North Hyde Park, as will the hours. The new location will be open every day, DeSimone said, and offer more sides and pasta dishes as well as grab-and-go items. Cousin Vinny will also add focaccia sandwiches to the menu at the North Hyde Park store. It will offer delivery via third-party apps, and DeSimone said the partners are looking into adding a patio in the back of the property that could increase the seating from 18 to 40.

“We saw there’s a true want for this type of food in South Tampa,” DeSimone said.