Anania's Variety, Portland, Maine, Delicatessen Restaurant Details

Food:

Everything is great here .. Love the whoopie pies..

Food:

Great place to stop by if youre looking for a good meal. Friendly staff, owned by a local family who are very involved in the community. Great selection of hot and cold foods, as well as beer, made in shop sweets and a large wine selection. Overall, very impressed with this store. This business gets very busy during the lunch hour, but i have never waited too long for food. I give Ananias two thumbs up, great experiences!

Food:

In a day and age where the variety/convenience store landscape is ruled by the likes of 7-Eleven and its corporate brethren, Anania's is a nice alternative to the stale, unfriendly and often inept service often found at those franchise behemoths.

I should qualify my review by stating that to date, I've been only to the Congress Street location of Anania's.

In addition to soda, coffee, chips and the usual convenience store fare, Anania's offers hot and cold sandwiches, burgers, pastas, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, pizza and other items. Their hot dogs are not huge, but they are unusually tasty (get your dog "loaded"), and—while I still find it difficult to fully embrace the Maine "Italian" sandwich (which is about as "Italian" as Chef Boyardee Ravioli)—Anania's makes a pretty good version. But do yourself a favor and get the Capicola Italian as opposed to the "regular" Italian.

The service is prompt and friendly. Even during busy hours, when the counter is swarmed by customers putting in orders, its rare to wait more than 5-10 minutes for an order. The people working behind the counter handle the crowd with agility and grace. I've never put in a take-out order only to arrive and find that it's not yet ready. If anything, the take-out orders are done more quickly than is suggested (e.g. if they tell you 15 minutes, it tends to be closer to 10).

I have only two small complaints about Anania's. The first is the (Congress Street) location. The store is wedged at the intersection of the always-busy Congress Street and Bolton Street. Across the street from it is Tony's Donuts, which does a tremendous amount of business in the morning. Needless to say, the area is a zoo between 7am and Noon, and again during evening rush hour. I've had many near accidents at this intersection, as patrons tend to park wherever the feel like (even if that means parking in the middle of the street and blocking traffic!) and motorists often pull in and out of the parking spots without bothering to check for street traffic first. But I can't really fault Anania's for the store's popularity, or the stupidity of motorists.

My other small complaint is that the evening hours are a bit limited. During the week, Anania's closes at 9pm. I've been told that this is done in an effort to keep the drunks (of which there are plenty) from stumbling in at the later hours and making a mess. While I wish Anania's was open until 11pm or later, I can understand the decision to close early.