The Carollo Family

The Carollo family, led by proprietor Mike Carollo, has run Carollo’s Italian Grocery & Deli in Kansas City’s River Market since the early 1990s — a Sicilian-rooted institution known for house-made Italian sausage, cannoli, olive salad, and a deep selection of imported groceries.

Biography

The business began as a family wholesale meat operation in 1988 and grew into a busy River Market storefront by 1993.¹ Founded by Mike Carollo, it is run today with his brother Frank and Mike’s sons Anthony and Frankie — two working generations of the family.² Carollo’s built its reputation on quality and tradition rooted in Mike Carollo’s Sicilian heritage — house-made Italian sausage, fresh deli meats and cheeses, cannoli, olive salad, and from-scratch specialties drawn from recipes of his boyhood home in Sicily.²

Located in the heart of the River Market, Carollo’s has remained a trusted destination for Kansas City’s Italian-food community and home cooks alike for more than three decades.¹

Legacy

Carollo’s represents the durable thread of Italian-American food culture in Kansas City — a family grocery and deli that has kept Sicilian tradition alive in the city’s oldest market district.

See also

• carollos-retail-market-deli
• river-market

Sources

Footnotes

1. “Carollo’s Italian Grocery & Deli,” The City Market KC; Feast Magazine — family wholesale meat business (1988) to River Market storefront (1993). ↩ ↩²

2. Carollo’s official site (carollosspecialtyitaliangrocery.com) — Mike Carollo with brother Frank and sons Anthony and Frankie; Sicilian heritage; house-made sausage, cannoli, olive salad. [No pre-1988 Carollo grocery/sausage lineage in KC’s historic Italian North End is documented; the family’s story is the 1988→present business plus Mike’s first-generation Sicilian heritage — do not assert an older ancestral chain.] ↩ ↩²