A new Italian-style market and deli opened its doors Thursday on Person Street in Raleigh's Oakwood neighborhood, bringing scratch-made sandwiches, pastas, and take-home meals to a storefront with deep neighborhood roots. Gallicchio's Market & Eatery is the work of chef Stacy Gallicchio Murphy, who says the concept draws inspiration from the Italian delis she grew up around in New England.
According to Axios, the market occupies 702 N. Person St., the former home of (ish) delicatessen, which closed its Person Street location earlier this year. Gallicchio Murphy brings serious culinary credentials to the counter: she's a graduate of the Connecticut Culinary Institute who trained at Emeril's in New Orleans and Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Massachusetts, according to The Coley Group. Axios also reports she worked at Armsby Abbey in Massachusetts before bringing her deli concept to Raleigh.
The menu leans hard into made-from-scratch Italian comfort food. Per Axios reporting, the case is stocked with pastas, broccoli rabe, and take-home meals, while the counter menu covers salads, pastas, and sandwiches — including a roasted pork and broccoli rabe sandwich priced at $16, a muffuletta, and a meatball sub. Everything, per the outlet, is made in-house, and the team plans to add special dinners down the road.
A Century-Old Building Gets Another Chapter
The building itself carries its own story. The storefront sits inside a structure that has housed Person Street Pharmacy since 1910, home to what's described as Raleigh's last remaining authentic full-service soda fountain, according to WALTER Magazine. Before Gallicchio's moved in, the space was home to Matt Fern's (ish) delicatessen, a Jewish-Italian-Southern fusion sandwich shop that opened inside the pharmacy building in July 2021 and closed in early 2026, per the same magazine's earlier coverage. Fern launched that shop after working for Ashley Christensen's local restaurant group.
The daily rhythm at Gallicchio's splits in two. The space is designed for fast daytime counter service before shifting in the late afternoon into a lounge pouring a curated selection of roughly 12 wines and European beers, according to WhatNow. The venue seats about 30 people. Behind the scenes, an in-house bakery program kicks off daily at 6 a.m., turning out scratch-made ciabatta, focaccia, baguettes, and traditional Italian cakes and custards, according to a ZipRecruiter job listing tied to the market's hiring push ahead of its fall opening.
Person Street's Year of Turnover
Gallicchio's arrival lands in the middle of a turbulent year for the Person Street commercial strip. The 12-year neighborhood hangout The Station closed in March just across the street at 701 N. Person St. — a shutdown Hoodline covered in February — and that space was replaced in May by all-day eatery Cora, per Raleigh Magazine's reporting on the lease change.
The openings are part of a broader wave of grocery and hybrid-market expansion hitting Raleigh this fall, with projects like Wolfside Urban Market on Davie Street and the growth of Pizzeria Toro and The Common Market into Seaboard Station all landing around the same time, according to the Coley Group's trend reporting. Before settling into the Person Street storefront, Gallicchio Murphy's team built local recognition by running the Pounded Pig food truck around the Raleigh area, per the same source, and held a number of pop-ups before Thursday's formal opening.
Fitting Into a Neighborhood of Longtime Delis
Gallicchio's sits on the edge of Historic Oakwood, a pedestrian-friendly residential neighborhood whose early 20th-century housing stock anchors the Person Street corridor, per the Coley Group. Independent sandwich shops have long found an audience here — Side Street Cafe, located less than two miles away at Bloodworth and Lane Streets, has served home-style sandwiches for more than 45 years, according to Wake Living Magazine. Whether Gallicchio's Italian-market approach carves out similar staying power on a block that's already seen plenty of change this year remains to be seen, but for now, the counter is slicing meatball subs and muffulettas for a neighborhood that's shown it has an appetite for both.
