MIDDLETOWN - One day in 1979, a teenage David Yasser saw a help-wanted sign in the window of a local deli called Valencia. He took a chance and applied.
Who would have known that he would one day own his very own deli, Florentinos Catering in Middletown , and enjoying more success than he could have ever dreamed.
“I was 15 and I needed a job,” Yasser said. “I started by washing dishes and learned how to wait on customers. I learned how to make the food there that included sausage and mozzarella cheese. I even learned how to do catering orders for customers. It was wonderful.”
Yasser worked there for 11 years and said it prepared him for his own deli.
“I liked the cooking and the catering,” Yasser said. “I really enjoyed meeting new people and talking to new faces. I got really excited at the possibility of owning my own place somewhere down the road and being self-employed.”
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Getting out of corporate America
Yasser would go on to study business at Stockton College for the next four years. After graduating, he got a job with Merrill Lynch in Newark, but it didn't pan out.
“I did leave there rather quickly,” Yasser said. “After working there for a little while, I realized that corporate America was not for me.”
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Yasser went back to the deli where he had worked as a young man and worked there again for the next three years.
“To tell the truth, I wanted to start my own deli the first day I went back to the deli I originally worked at as a kid, but I waited until the time was right,” Yasser said.
In 1990, the time was right.
Yasser built Florentinos from scratch and it took him about two to three months. Yasser chose the name Florentinos because he thought it was a nice Italian-sounding name.
“I was 25 years old,” Yasser said. “It became a lot of running around to own and operate my own business, but it was worth it after all.”
After two years in the business working with his friend Lenny DiPinto, who he met at his first deli job, he decided to make DePinto a co-owner. He was a great match for Yasser's vision for how he wanted to run the deli.
“He didn’t go to college or anything, but he worked with me in Middletown,” Yasser said. “We kept in touch over the years, and we always got along. We are still good friends to this day.
“He is an excellent cook,” Yasser said. “He loves talking to people, booking catering orders and handling logistics and things like that. A lot of the old-world recipes that we have on the menu come from his family’s background in Italy. He really runs the back of the restaurant and the kitchen.”
Yasser said he and DePinto had great aspirations for the business from the beginning.
“We wanted to make a future, be successful and support our future families,” Yasser said. “It was very difficult to get everything off the ground at first. It was nonstop working seven days a week for the first two years.
“We ran into some challenges along the way, including finding the right employees,” Yasser said. “The biggest thing is having to adjust with the times. We are not what we were when we first opened up. We started as an Italian Specialty Shop, and now we do a lot of sandwiches and take-out food. Our main draw now is catering.”
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'Always do right by the customer'
Yasser doesn’t especially focus on competition, but believes his business can hang with the best of them.
“We don’t try to compete with the supermarkets that surround us,” Yasser said. “We care a lot about what we do, and our recipes are very good. We use higher-quality ingredients. We will always do right by the customer, and we go over and above. We constantly have five-star reviews on Google and there is a reason for that.
Yasser said he is offering customers an experience that the big-box stores cannot match.
“There is a reason we have been around for 34 years,” Yasser said. “The first couple years may have been challenging, but we eventually find our footing and we are now busier than ever. We can’t wait to be here for another 34 years.
“The biggest hump to get over for us is that we must evolve over time,” Yasser said. “If I never evolved from where I started, I wouldn’t be here today. It’s all about personalized service. We know our customers by name, and we take pride in that. You must change what you do.”
As Florentinos Catering is a deli by trade, they have a lot of Italian cuisine.
“We do a lot of Italian food, but also a lot of American food as well,” Yasser said. “We do pasta, beef, chicken, pork and seafood dishes. We also make a lot of hot and cold sandwich platters along with salad options. We also have our share of deserts.”
Yasser and DePinto look toward the future with optimism.
“I want to keep on working because I love what I do,” Yasser said. “I am at the point in my life that I enjoy what I do. I have three kids in college who are independent of me. I come to work to and I enjoy what I do. I like coming to work to talk and interact with people. One thing that always makes me feel good is when customers come back to us and say that our food was a big hit for a party or something. That makes me want to keep coming back.”
Florentinos Catering
Owners: David Yasser and Lenny DePinto
Location: 1148 Route 35, Middletown
Phone: 732-671-1801
Website: www.florentinos.com
Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays; 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Teen job — and a miserable stint in corporate America — led to landmark Middletown deli
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