Still holding out for a hero? Good news. This one comes on a roll.
That hero sandwich may be the original mission, but fresh mozzarella, pasta, and something sweet can start rewriting the plan pretty quickly.
This Dunwoody market has been tempting Georgia shoppers since 1986, when one family brought its Italian-American food traditions from New York.
The deli counter gives lunch a strong opening act, while the grocery shelves make leaving with only one thing feel wildly optimistic.
The shop is open six days a week and closed Sunday, which makes a midday stop easy to work into the week.
I’d come in holding out for one hero and leave with enough extras for an encore.
The Augello Family Opened The Market In 1986
The story starts with Charlie and Anita Augello.
Both grew up in New York City in Italian-American families, surrounded by restaurants, deli counters, bakeries, and neighborhood grocery stores. After settling in the Atlanta area, they wanted to bring that same kind of small Italian market to Dunwoody.
E. 48th Street Market opened on September 30, 1986.
Family recipes became part of the foundation from the beginning. The cooking draws on Tuscan, Piedmontese, and Sicilian traditions, and those regional influences still appear throughout the market’s prepared foods, pasta, breads, sweets, and pantry shelves.
A sandwich counter sits beside specialty groceries. Fresh pasta and prepared meals are meant to go home with you. Bread is baked for lunch and for the grocery basket.
The family connection did not stop with the founders. Their children helped at the market over the years, and daughter Andrea became closely involved in day-to-day operations.
Instead of separating restaurant and market into two different errands, the business has always blended the two.
For a first visit, leave extra time after lunch. The shelves can easily become the next part of the stop.
Lunch Starts With A Long List Of Hero Sandwiches
The hero menu gives you plenty of directions before you ever reach the prepared entrées.
Meatball, sausage, eggplant parmigiana, chicken cutlet, roast beef, salami, prosciutto, Italian tuna, turkey, and vegetable combinations all appear on the current menu.
One of the market’s signature sandwiches is the Stoffato. Salami, mortadella, capicola, provolone, lettuce, and the house special sauce are layered onto a crusty Italian roll.
Another option pairs soppressata with roasted peppers and fresh mozzarella. The homemade mozzarella hero goes in a different direction with roasted peppers, basil, and pesto dressing.
Crusty hero rolls are baked fresh, which gives the sandwiches the same bread connection you see elsewhere in the market.
The easier choice is to decide whether lunch should be hot or cold.
Go toward meatball, sausage, chicken cutlet, or eggplant when you want something sauced and warm. Choose prosciutto, salami, capicola, tuna, or fresh mozzarella when a cold sandwich sounds better.
E. 48th Street Market is at 2462 Jett Ferry Rd, Dunwoody, GA 30338.
Lunch can be eaten there or packed to take away, so the deli works just as easily for a quick stop as it does for a longer browse through the market afterward.
Fresh Mozzarella Is Still Made In House
Mozzarella is not simply something pulled from a deli package here.
Charlie and Andrea regularly prepare Mozzarella in Acqua, and fresh handmade mozzarella appears across the current menu.
You can find it in salads, sandwiches, prepared combinations, and the deli case. Mozzarella Caprese pairs it with roasted peppers and onion, while Mozzarella di Casa combines rolled mozzarella with vegetables or deli meat, roasted peppers, herbs, and olive oil.
Fresh mozzarella also appears in the soppressata hero and the market’s vegetarian sandwich combinations.
That gives you several ways to try it before deciding whether to bring some home.
Start with a sandwich if lunch is the priority. A salad makes more sense when you want the cheese to stand on its own. Then check the deli case before leaving if dinner plans could use another piece.
The market also sells pizza ingredients separately, so fresh mozzarella can move directly from the deli counter into a home pizza night.
That kind of overlap is common here.
One ingredient appears in lunch, then turns up again as something you can carry home and use differently.
Fresh mozzarella is one of the clearest examples of how the deli and grocery sides of the business connect instead of operating separately.
House-Made Pasta And Prepared Entrées Cover Dinner Too
Fresh pasta gives the market another reason to stay beyond lunch.
The Augellos make their own pasta, including sheets of lasagna that can be cut to fit a pan at home.
The current daily menu also includes penne, linguine, fettuccine, and rigatoni with sauces such as marinara, Alfredo, Bolognese, and pesto.
Prepared entrées expand the choices further. Chicken parmigiana, eggplant parmigiana, baked ziti, ravioli, manicotti, stuffed shells, Sicilian lasagna, and primavera lasagna all appear on the menu.
That makes it possible to handle two meals in one stop.
Order a hero for lunch, then pick up pasta or a prepared entrée for later.
The grocery section also carries house marinara and frozen specialty foods, so dinner does not have to start from scratch once you get home.
Pizza follows the same pattern. The deli sells pizza by the slice, whole square pizzas by advance order, and a take-home pizza kit with dough, sauce, and mozzarella.
The question becomes how much cooking you actually want to do.
Choose prepared food when the evening needs to stay easy. Fresh pasta and sauce give you a little more involvement. Pizza dough lets you take over the final step yourself.
Fresh Bread Comes Out Daily
Bread has its own section of the market rather than functioning only as a sandwich wrapper.
The bakery makes several Italian breads fresh daily, including bastone, Barese rounds, ciabatta, country rolls, country loaves, focaccia, muffaletta rolls, semolina loaves, and Sicilian loaves.
The breads are hearth-baked without added sugar or fat.
Special orders broaden the list further, with some breads requiring advance notice.
That gives you a simple decision after lunch.
If a hero reminded you how much the bread matters, grab a loaf for dinner. Ciabatta and country loaves work easily beside prepared entrées, while focaccia can become part of a snack or sandwich at home.
The bakery also connects with the deli through party heroes and muffaletta orders, both of which require advance notice.
Dessert is nearby too.
Cannoli, sfogliatelle, cakes, cookies, tiramisu, biscotti, panna cotta, and other Italian sweets appear among the bakery and catering selections.
Save room if something in the pastry case catches your attention. A sandwich, fresh loaf, and one dessert can easily turn what started as lunch into tomorrow’s pantry plan as well.
Imported And Domestic Italian Groceries Fill The Shelves
The grocery shelves are not secondary to the deli.
E. 48th Street Market carries imported and domestic Italian specialty foods meant for cooking at home.
The selection includes pasta, tomatoes, vinegars, extra-virgin olive oil, antipasto ingredients, olives, marinara sauce, traditional cookies, cakes, candies, and other pantry staples.
Cold cuts and cheeses add another layer, with prosciutto, pancetta, sausages, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Taleggio, Gorgonzola, and other deli items available.
The family also makes its own sausages, including traditional Italian varieties and cervellata, a Sicilian-style coiled sausage with cheese and parsley.
Freezer selections extend the prepared-food side of the market. Braciole, Sicilian braciole, meat loaf, and other family-recipe dishes can be taken home for later.
That makes browsing easier when you shop by meal rather than by aisle.
Pick a pasta. Add sauce. Choose cheese or sausage.
Grab bread. Then decide whether dessert belongs in the same bag.
The shelves are especially useful for ingredients that may be harder to find in a standard grocery store.
Come with one dinner idea in mind, but leave enough room in the plan for something you did not expect to spot.
The Market Still Runs On Family Recipes And Daily Cooking
Nearly four decades after opening, the basic format remains recognizable.
Family recipes still shape the prepared foods. Fresh breads are baked daily. Mozzarella is made in-house.
Pasta, sausages, sandwiches, soups, entrées, bakery items, and specialty groceries all continue to share the same market.
The current hours make it easy to decide when the stop fits best.
Weekdays run from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., which leaves room for lunch, an afternoon grocery stop, or take-home dinner shopping. Saturday closes at 6 p.m., and Sunday is reserved as the weekly closed day.
Let the time of day decide how you use the place.
Around noon, start with a hero and see what the bakery case looks like afterward. Late afternoon works better for fresh pasta, bread, sauce, and prepared food to take home.
A larger appetite can handle both.
You can order something hot, browse imported groceries while it is being prepared, then leave with dinner ingredients tucked beside lunch leftovers.
That combination gives E. 48th Street Market its neighborhood-market character. It is not just a deli counter and not just a grocery store.
A visit can easily become a little of both.