Grand re-opening on Saturday By Michelle Myers It was Mother's Day and PT Rutigliano was enjoying a break at the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn. As the sea lions' performance ended, his phone started ringing. And ringing. After the sixth call in as many minutes, Mr. Rutigliano finally picked up and heard words no one ever wants to hear. "You'd better get home. Your place is on fire." His place is the Wayside Market butcher shop and deli, a fixture in Southold since 1962, with an unrivaled reputation for selling some of the highest-quality meat products (and egg and bacon sandwiches) on the North Fork. That day, a gas line behind the stove in the store's kitchen had ignited, causing a serious fire that gutted the back room. Mr. Rutigliano has been in the meat business for 30 years and began working at Wayside Market in 1992. He purchased the business in 1999, and then the building at the corner of Route 25 and Boisseau Avenue in 2002. But the building's original life as a luncheonette (at one point with a couple of gas pumps out front) dates back to well before the 1960s. With all of that history, it was heartbreaking for Mr. Rutigliano to contemplate his ruined premises and daunting to think about what lay ahead. "Thank God for the Southold Fire Department," says Mr. Rutigliano, as he bustles about the store finalizing the last little details before the grand reopening scheduled for this weekend. "I owe them everything. In fact, I ran a thank you in the paper for them. Those guys saved my building when it could have been so much worse." But it was bad enough. Business has been on hold for the past six months while a major rebuild took place, and Mr. Rutigliano says the whole experience has been more than a little stressful. The rebuild started in the last week of July and wasn't complete until mid-November. Then it was a question of whether all the appliances would be delivered on time. (Last week the new sneeze guard was still on its way but was expected to make it by the grand reopening.) During this whole period, Mr. Rutigliano has continued to pay his employees. "I can't afford to lose them," he says. "They're all so good. I had to sit down and figure out how to make ends meet because summer is my prime time." Even though the rebuild is now complete, it was not without problems, chief of which was negotiating the insurance issues, which impacted Mr. Rutigliano's ability to keep paying his staff. Luckily he has been able to underwrite those salaries while the insurance process completes itself at what Mr. Rutigliano describes as an agonizing snail's pace. On the other hand, Mr. Rutigliano has nothing but praise for the way Southold Town extended its assistance with the administrative aspects of the rebuild so that he could put the pieces back together as quickly as possible. "The town was really excellent, really efficient. They went out of their way." And Mr. Rutigliano is very pleased with the end result. He particularly likes the way the kitchen has turned out. "It's much more functional," he says. "The workflow makes so much more sense. The stoves have been upgraded. The space is larger and people aren't stepping on each other." The front of the store, too, has a few changes. There is now a window through to the kitchen that will make placing and receiving orders that much easier. The walls are clad in blond paneling and lined with old photographs of the Wayside Market in its previous incarnations. The floors sport peach slate tiles. Mr. Rutigliano has also added six tables with seating for 12 so that customers can enjoy their breakfast sandwiches and coffee while watching the news on the two new flat-screen televisions. Also new are the open shelving and the old-fashioned tin tiles on the wall behind the counter that give the space the feel of an old-time butcher's shop. In keeping with the traditional theme, well-used butcher's knives and saws hang on the wall next to two massive slabs of prosciutto that, along with the luscious-looking sausage in the display case, constitute the advance party for the meats that will soon be available to the store's many fans. (Indeed, within a half hour, at least three people, seeing the lights on, bang on the door and inquire hopefully whether the Wayside is open again for business.) In spite of the new d & eacute;cor, though, what will remain the same, assures Mr. Rutigliano, is the quality of his products. "So come on in. I won't be changing the way I cook, and the meat is still the same prime aged beef."
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