Jerry Boucher has experienced the food service business from its bottom rung, as a lowly dishwasher, and at its top, as a hotshot chef on a yacht, but it is the daily ho-hum joys and headaches of operating the humble Gioia Italian Deli in downtown St. Petersburg that really rings his bells.
The deli's move downtown last year from its longtime location at 49th Street N. and Ninth Avenue has been financially tough, but Boucher sees a silver lining in the once blighted area's slow transformation to a prosperous urban neighborhood. He hopes his shop can attract enough of the new residents — who are madly snapping up apartments and buying fancy condos, townhouses and single family homes for the first time in 40 years — to prosper.
If anybody can do it, it would be Boucher, whose distinguished résumé is the first hint that the Gioia might be something out of the ordinary.
The second hint is the fare: fresh, creative, expertly prepared and featuring atypically sophisticated sandwiches. Choose from a portabella mushroom, caramelized onion, arugula and provolone cheese on panini ($3.99); chicken picante ($5.99), the meat layered with pepperjack cheese, avocado, lettuce and tomato; fancy breads, like calabrese, marbled rye and whole grain; or a fluffy handmade tiramisu that no self-respecting downtowner could pass up.
As a kid, Boucher, now 46, stocked shelves in his father's grocery store in Springfield, Mass., washed dishes at a local banquet facility and went on to graduate from the prestigious Culinary Institute of American in Hyde Park, N.Y.
For years he traveled the world, cooking in Germany and Honolulu and then serving as a sous chef at the famous Broadmoor Resort in Colorado. For five years, he cooked for drugstore magnate Charles R. Walgreen Jr. on his yacht, but threw it all overboard in 1988 to buy the Gioia Italian Deli (pronounced JOY-YA, meaning "my darling") with his brother.
"I knew it would be a gamble, but it has been turning around. There are people working down here, and it's true: I go as the working people go," Boucher said in a phone interview. "I don't get much from the Florencia (an expensive new condo). I do get some from The Madison — those little row houses run and maintained by Zom; they're filling up pretty quickly down there."
Florencia residents probably don't have any idea the deli exists, as it's tucked anonymously inside the BayView Tower office building, without so much as a simple sign outside to help you navigate. Even when you stand inside the building, it's easy to miss the teeny sign pointing to the deli.
But do persevere because once you find it, you'll go back. It's simple, clean and spare inside, its shelves lined with exotic wares, like high-quality olive oils, wine, beer, premium vinegars and fancy crackers. It also stocks what all city dwellers hope to find nearby: terrific lasagna. It's frozen in take-out trays that you can heat at home for 10 minutes in the microwave, and voila.
At lunch there recently, we also scored unusually creative salads, such as the house salad ($3.99, $4.99 with meat), featuring an imaginative assortment of greens, tasty red tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, carrots, olives, sprouts, croutons and homemade dressing in a little plastic cup.
An antipasto platter ($4.99) was a forest of perfect greens, tomatoes, olives, marinated artichokes, marinated mushrooms, fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, fusilli pasta and romano. The whole concoction was served with homemade dressing and breadsticks.
My favorite dish, however, was a grilled turkey sandwich on calabrese ($5.99), high-quality meat with whole berry cranberry sauce and American cheese. It was grilled, but without butter — "It makes it extra crispy that way," Boucher said. He was right; it was delicious. I also liked his refreshing homemade iced teas ($1.17).
The deli also offers a variety of soups, pasta dishes, hand-stuffed cherry peppers and desserts, such as a nutty, buttery and chubby chocolate chip cookies ($1.39). And chilled tiramisu ($2.99), sporting a smooth, cloud-like texture and a delicate espresso and chocolate flavor.
Boucher works long hours each day, but he has help from his mother, Irene, 74, who is there to open the shop each day at 7:30 a.m. Early birds luck out with some pretty elegant choices for breakfast, like a fritatta panini ($3.99) — eggs or Eggbeaters combined with potatoes, onions, peppers, zucchini, summer squash tomatoes, grated romano and American cheese and herbs, served atop Italian flat bread.
The deli also offers traditional pastries, muffins, scones, breads, bagels and Barnie's coffee ($1.17). In the evening, Boucher stays open till 5:30 p.m. so people can pick up groceries and dinner items to take home.
When he's not cooking or manning the deli, the chef hosts a monthly wine tasting, usually the last Wednesday of the month at the deli, and he leads a program about healthy eating and cooking at the Heart and Vascular Institute. This summer, he expects to be dividing his time between the deli and a new, 127-foot yacht upon which the Walgreen family will be vacationing, where he will once again serve as chef.
He relays a story about a student who interviewed him for a class assignment. She asked him what he liked about running his own business. He wrote: "I like the day-to-day struggles of it, dealing with customers, trying to get it better than it was before, making food and trying to sell it, even when things break, it's part of the routine."
In answer to the question, "What don't you like about running your own business?" Boucher wrote: "Same as above."
Food Editor Sara Kennedy dines anonymously, and Weekly Planet pays for her meals. She can be reached at sara.kennedy@weeklyplanet.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 116.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2003.
