PUBLISHED ON: MAY 29, 2013
A Family Affair may well be the best Italian deli in the Bergen county area. I’ve been to many, many delis, in search of a place that uses great bread and can put together a sandwich with a smile. Haven’t found one that can pull this off other than A Family Affair.
It’s a family affair indeed. It’s very likely the owner, Eddie, will be making your sandwich. And I think that’s his mom manning the register on some days. There are no grumpy old dudes, no jaded kids carelessly throwing some meat on some bread. Hell even the customers are really really nice.
This isn’t a deli where you’ll be getting homemade salumi, so get that out of your head (A&S Fine Foods in Wyckoff fills that niche, but doesn’t make a sandwich to my liking…too much bread). But if you’re looking for an Italian-style hero, something perhaps in the vein of Vito’s in Hoboken (the gold standard), you’ll be pleased with what you find here. What sets A Family Affair apart from A&S and Italian Riviera and Cosmo’s is the bread. My goodness the bread. The bread at A Family Affair is top-notch stuff. It comes from some place in Jersey City, and it tastes like it. This stuff is as good as the bread I used to get in Hoboken back in the day, from places like Antique and Marie’s.
But too much of a good thing isn’t necessarily good, and these guys get it. Your bread will be gutted without having to ask. You have to gut the bread, otherwise you have a terribly large and unbalanced sandwich. Vito knows this, and so does Eddie.
Get over to this small family run place. The tunafish with some hot peppers on a hero is spot on.
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