Marco Polo's Italian Market & Deli

Marco Polo’s Italian Market & Deli is the counter-service half of Jasper’s at Watts Mill, 103rd & State Line — an Italian grocery, deli case and trattoria-style kitchen run by the Mirabile family alongside their 1954 fine-dining room. It began at the original Jasper’s in Waldo when Leonard Mirabile noticed customers buying salami and bread and asking him to slice it, and moved with the restaurant to Watts Mill in 1998. Kansas City voted it The Pitch’s Best Deli of 2025. Order the charcoal-grilled Italian sausage with potatoes, peppers and onions ($6.50), the Marco Polo cold sub on a Le Monde baguette, a cannoli, and a jar of Jasper’s sauce to go.

Description

Marco Polo’s shares the Watts Mill building with Jasper’s and is the room you enter for lunch, a quick dinner or groceries; Jasper’s is the white-tablecloth room next door.¹² After the family’s 2016 renovation of the shopping center, the old refrigerated cases came out and a wood counter went in so customers can watch food being prepared, and Feast described the deli as feeling “more connected to the fine dining side of the house.”¹ Shelves carry Italian groceries and the family’s own bottled products — Jasper’s tomato, marinara, vodka and pizza sauces, Italian and Tuscan dressings, cannoli shells, seasoning blend, olive oil and balsamic glaze — and the deli case sells salami (regular and Volpi), corned beef, mortadella, coppacola, house Italian sausage and cheeses by the pound.³²

The kitchen menu is Italian-American trattoria food: spaghetti, penne and cheese ravioli from $10; lasagna; the family’s Capelli d’Angelo alla Nanni (angel hair in tomato cream with mushrooms, prosciutto and peas); Chicken Marco Polo, a baked breast stuffed with ham, spinach and cheese; and a Thursday Italian meatloaf dinner with minestrone, salad, bread and spumoni.³ Cold subs — the Marco Polo (salami, mortadella, yellow peppers, tomato, provolone), a muffuletta, a New Orleans po’ boy, Italian, capicola and turkey heroes — come on Le Monde Bakery baguettes from the Strawberry Hill Povitica Co.; hot sandwiches include the Gondola (Jasper Jr.’s meatballs and sauce), the Venetian Italian steak sandwich, the Fat Marco Polo of garlic-buttered Italian meats, and the $6.50 charcoal-grilled Italian sausage with potatoes, peppers and onions that the menu calls the house favorite.³ Desserts are house cannoli, tartufo, tiramisu, limoncello cake and Scola’s Italian wedding cookies.³

Kansas City voted it Best Deli in The Pitch’s Best of KC 2025, ahead of King G, Breit’s Stein & Deli, Fetterman’s, M&M Bakery and Deli and The Italian Sausage Company; the family’s Instagram thanked the city for a vote in which “over 407,000 votes were cast.”⁴⁵

Ownership and history

Marco Polo’s is a Mirabile family business in every sense; the family’s full history is on the jaspers-restaurant page. In brief: Sicilian-born Leonardo Mirabile and his Kansas City–born son Jasper Sr. opened Jasper’s at 405 W. 75th Street in Waldo in 1954, and it grew from pizza and meatballs into the city’s most decorated Italian dining room.⁶

The deli was the second generation’s idea. According to the Martin City Telegraph’s 2018 family history, Leonard Mirabile noticed customers buying salami and bread from the restaurant and asking him to slice it, then walking out eating their own sandwiches — so the family added Marco Polo’s Groceria and Deli, a store selling ingredients from around the world, “something Kansas City had never seen.” Around 1990 they found 2,000 square feet of empty space next door — the original Waldo livery stable, the “Rock Barn” — and turned it into a trattoria of “simple, prepared food with fresh ingredients,” an informal middle ground between the deli and Jasper’s, advertised with the slogan “Don’t walk, don’t run… Trot with your girlfriend Maria to the trattoria.”⁶ J.J. Mirabile dates the deli’s opening next door to when he began working full-time in the kitchen at 22.⁷

In 1997 the family sold the 75th Street property to Walgreens and moved south to Watts Mill, a shopping center at 103rd and State Line that J.J. and Leonard had bought; in 1998 Jasper’s and Marco Polo’s reopened there together as the center’s anchor.⁶¹ In 2016 the brothers completed a $1.73 million exterior renovation of the whole center, including the restaurant and the deli’s interior.¹ Today J.J. (Jasper Jr.), Leonard and the third generation — Jasper III (“3J”) and the nephews who joined during COVID and expanded catering — run both sides.⁶⁷

Links

• Order / menu: https://marcopolo.jasperskc.com/
• Jasper’s (parent): https://jasperskc.com/
• Instagram (Best Deli post): https://www.instagram.com/p/DQpaH_qD_E5/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jasperskc/
• The Pitch Best of KC 2025, Best Deli: https://bestofkc2025.thepitchkc.com/PitchKC/pitch-best-of-kc-2025-results/food/best-deli

Menu

Last verified: 2026-08-28 · Source: Marco Polo’s own online ordering site (marcopolo.jasperskc.com) · Confidence: High. Transcribed verbatim, including the restaurant’s spellings; ”+” marks a starting price.³

Nightly special

• Italian Meatloaf (Thursday) — from 4 p.m.; with minestrone, tossed salad, bread and butter, spumoni. ($13.50)

Pasta

• Spaghetti ($10+) · Penne ($10+) · Cheese Ravioli ($10+) · Toasted Ravioli with tomato sauce ($11)
• Lasagna — tomato sauce, ricotta, ground Italian sausage. ($13) · Fettuccine Alfredo ($13+)
• Linguini & Clams — clams, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, herbs. ($14)
• Capelli D’Angelo alla Nanni — angel hair, tomato cream, mushrooms, prosciutto, peas. ($18)

Italian specialties

• Italian Sausage Dinner — two grilled sausages, potatoes, peppers, onions. ($13) · Italian Steak Parmesan with pasta ($13) · Italian Meatloaf with potatoes, peppers, onions ($13) · Eggplant Parmesan with penne ($13) · Chicken Parmesan with penne ($13) · Chicken Limonata — “old school” lemon-reduction chicken ($13)
• Chicken Marco Polo — baked breast filled with ham, spinach and cheese, tomato sauce, potatoes, peppers, onions. ($15)

Cold sandwiches (Le Monde Bakery baguette by Strawberry Hill Povitica Co.) — all $11

• Marco Polo (Italian dressing, salami, mortadella, yellow peppers, tomatoes, provolone) · Muffuletta · New Orleans Po’ Boy (roast beef) · Italian Hero · Capicola Hero · Turkey Hero

Hot sandwiches (soft sub roll, peasant bread or baguette)

• Charcoal Grilled Italian Sausage with potatoes, peppers and onions — “house favorite.” ($6.50)
• Gondola — Jasper Jr.’s tomato sauce and meatballs, mozzarella. ($11) · Venetian — Italian steak, tomato sauce, onions, provolone. ($12) · Fat Marco Polo — garlic butter, mortadella, capicolla, salami, olives, onions, provolone. ($12) · Sicilian Panino ($12) · Eggplant Panino ($12) · Chicken Parmigiano Sub ($13) · Chicken Panini — pesto, roasted red peppers ($13) · Caprese Panini ($13)

Salads, soups, sides

• Caprese ($12) · Deli Chef ($13) · Tuna Salad ($12) · Caesar ($7+) · Spinach with Tuscan dressing and gorgonzola ($7+) · Tossed ($6) · deli-case salads (pasta, tortellini, antipasto, linguine & broccoli, tomato) $5 each
• Minestrone ($4+) · Lobster Bisque ($6+)
• Sicilian Meatballs (2) ($5) · Italian Sausage in sauce ($5) · Garlic Toast ($4) · Cheese Toast ($5) · Potatoes, Peppers & Onions ($4) · Chips ($2.50) · side of tomato or Alfredo sauce ($2) · gorgonzola ($2.25)

Pizza

• Build Your Own — San Marzano sauce, fontina/provolone/fresh mozzarella; 20 minutes per pizza. ($19+)

Desserts

• Cannoli — house shell, Sicilian filling ($3.50) · Cheesecake ($6) · Chocolate Cake ($6) · Coconut Cake ($6) · Apple Strudel ($6) · Tiramisu ($6) · Chocolate or Coconut Tartufo ($6) · Limoncello Cake ($10) · Scola’s Italian Wedding Cookies, assorted box ($8) · Chocolate Chip Cookie ($2)

Groceries

• Jasper’s bottled Tomato, Marinara, Vodka and Pizza sauces ($7) · Italian and Tuscan dressings ($6) · Special Blend extra-virgin olive oil ($20) · Balsamic glaze ($13.99) · Artisan pasta ($5.99) · Gnocchi ($5) · Italian breadcrumbs ($4) · Cannoli shells ($7) · Jasper’s Blend Italian seasoning ($5)

Deli meats and cheese, per pound

• Regular salami $10 · Volpi salami $16 · Corned beef $12 · Pit ham $10 · Mortadella $10 · Roast beef $12 · Turkey $10 · Coppacolla $13 · Italian sausage $6 · Tuna salad $15/qt · Kalamata or Castelvetrano olives $18
• Mozzarella, provolone, pizza cheese, grated Romano $10 · Hard or soft ricotta $7

Drinks and party packs

• Bottled water $2 · San Pellegrino (plain or flavored) $3 · Iced tea, lemonade, fountain soda $3.25 · Limoncello or Blood Orangecello, 16 oz $25
• Baked Mostaccioli party pack (serves 10; one hour’s notice) $65

Sources

Footnotes

1. Jenny Vergara, “Jasper’s Restaurant and Watts Mill Shopping Center Get a Facelift,” Feast Magazine, October 2016. Retrieved 2026-08-28 (rendered via Firecrawl) — Confirms: “18 years since Jasper Mirabile Jr. and his brother Leonard bought the Watts Mill Shopping Center and re-opened Jasper’s Italian Restaurant and Marco Polo’s Deli as the anchor”; $1.73M exterior renovation due Oct. 15; new wood counter cases replacing refrigerated cases; “more connected to the fine dining side of the house”; address and phone. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Jasper’s Restaurant — official website, home page. Retrieved 2026-08-28 — Confirms: “Order Marco Polo’s Italian Market” link to marcopolo.jasperskc.com; Marco Polo’s hours Mon–Thu 11–8, Fri–Sat 11–8:30; Italian grocery products on shelves; shared address. ↩ ↩²

3. Marco Polo’s Italian Market — official online ordering site. Retrieved 2026-08-28 (rendered via Firecrawl) — Confirms: name; phone (816) 941-6600; address 1201 W 103rd St, KC MO 64114; carryout hours Mon–Thu 11–8, Fri–Sat 11–8:30, closed Sun; every item and price in the Menu section; Le Monde/Strawberry Hill Povitica baguettes; Scola’s cookies; Jasper’s bottled products. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. The Pitch — Best of KC 2025 results portal, “Best Deli.” Retrieved 2026-08-28 (rendered via Firecrawl) — Confirms: Winner: Marco Polo’s Italian Market; runner-up King G; other finalists Breit’s Stein & Deli, Fetterman’s, M&M Bakery and Deli, The Italian Sausage Company. ↩

5. Jasper’s / Marco Polo’s (Instagram), “BEST DELI IN KANSAS CITY … You voted Marco Polo’s Italian Market as The Pitch Magazine’s 2025 Best Deli,” 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2026-08-28 — Confirms: award; “over 407,000 votes were cast”; 103rd & State Line; 816-941-6600. ↩

6. Diane Euston, “Jasper’s: The history and legacy of the Mirabile family,” Martin City Telegraph, 2018-09-02. Retrieved 2026-08-28 — Confirms: Leonardo and Jasper Sr., 1954, 405 W 75th; Leonard’s salami-and-bread observation; Marco Polo’s Groceria and Deli as an international-ingredients store; c. 1990 trattoria in the former livery stable (“Rock Barn”); “Trot with your girlfriend Maria” slogan; 1997 sale to Walgreens; 1998 reopening of both at 103rd & State Line; current operators J.J., Leonard and Jasper III. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

7. “Conversations with Jasper J. Mirabile Jr.,” VoyageKC, 2025-02-24. Retrieved 2026-08-28 — Confirms: Marco Polo’s “opened next door” when Mirabile started full-time in the kitchen at 22; three nephews working kitchen and dining room, joined during COVID, catering expansion; social identity “Jasper’s Restaurant & Marco Polo’s Italian Market”; 71 years in 2025. ↩ ↩²