I spoke with her again today after chef/restaurateur Frank Bonanno posted a tweet that echoed what we've been dreading.
Today, at least, it's so. "I don't got no choice," she tells me in her thick Italian accent. "Nobody in the family wants to do this, and I can't do it anymore," she adds, noting that her sons may keep the wholesale business up and running. "That's an option, but they can't do both. It's just too much for them to carry on. You can't enjoy your family."
Rosa, who's 73 and in the deli every day that it's open, has been holding down the fort at Carbone's for the past 37 years, and in that time, she's never taken a break, never gone on vacation. "I haven't been to Italy in 29 years. I'm going to forget everything and go."
Or is she? At the end of our conversation, she paused: "I don't know. Maybe I'll stay open."
But if she does close, it'll be between her and her legendary meatball sandwiches. She'll do so on her own terms, with no fanfare, no big announcement, no hoopla.
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