Cangiano’s Marketplace, a popular Jersey City Italian Specialties Shop, announced on Thursday that it has opened a new location in the city’s Journal Square neighborhood.
Located at 531 Summit Avenue, on the ground floor of the Journal Squared residential towers, Cangiano’s serves sandwiches, hot foods, and desserts daily.
Cangiano’s is the latest addition to the growing list of grocery, restaurant and café businesses to open at Journal Squared. Developers KRE Group and National Real Estate Advisors made it their goal to curate a retail mix that serves the community and acts as an extended amenity for their residents. The result is an emerging food hub in the heart of Journal Square.
“We are transforming Journal Square not only into a thriving residential community, but a culinary destination as well,” Jonathan Kushner, president of KRE Group said. “Cangiano’s is a great addition to the neighborhood, one that we know will quickly become the go-to place for fresh sandwiches, prepared foods, and specialty products.”
Cangiano’s is owned by Cosmo Cangiano and partners Steve Maugeri and Norman Bonoan.
Cangiano’s family roots in the business date back to 1919 when his grandmother opened Cangiano’s Pork Store in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. When he decided to open his own Italian deli in Jersey City’s Hamilton Park neighborhood in 2020, he brought back the name but put his own stamp on the business by introducing prepared foods and market items. Opening at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic was difficult, but Jersey City embraced the business and the menu quickly expanded from eight sandwiches in 2020 to 33 today, as well as a sandwich of the day, pasta of the day, protein of the day, grilled salmon, lasagna, eggplant parmesan, and other hot foods.
Customers began coming from all corners of Jersey City, including Journal Square. The neighborhood soon caught Cangiano’s attention as an ideal location for expansion.
“We have a lot of customers who come from Journal Square at least once a week to shop here and they always say to me ‘when are you going to open something near us?” Cangiano said.
“We like Journal Square because it is an up-and-coming area right next to the train station. We see all of the buildings going up and there is a lot of foot traffic. So, when the opportunity to open something there presented itself, we went for it.”
Cangiano’s joins Whealth Kitchen, a farm-to-table eatery, Food Story Natural Market, Journal Square’s first supermarket, and The Café at Journal Squared presented by Almost Home, a lively café and gourmet coffee shop in the lobby of Journal Squared, as food-related businesses KRE Group recruited to the Journal Squared development. KRE Group also created Magnolia Landing, a public plaza at the PATH station, that is home to year-round community programming such as farmers markets, food festivals, and live performances.
