By Brandon Duffy
Andrea Ceriello, an Italian immigrant who founded a chain of food stores including Cerillo Fine Foods on Willis Avenue in Williston Park, died on April 14 due to lymphoma. He was 69.
Born on February 25, 1953, Ceriello was an immigrant from Sant’Anastasia, Italy, a town just outside Naples. He came with his family to Brooklyn in 1970. It was there he began working in a “pork store” before eventually starting his own business, according to his obituary.
Ceriello opened his first two stores in Staten Island in the early 1970s, but he sold them to focus on Long Island. In 1979, he opened his 900-square-foot salami company on Willis Avenue, before expanding over two decades ago into a general high-end grocery store in the space next door.
Ceriello Fine Foods has since expanded to Manhattan, Baltimore, Wantagh and New Jersey. At its height, there were nine locations for the high-end market. Currently, the locations that remain are Williston Park and Grand Central Terminal.
When Ceriello opened up a burger spot in 2015, he told Blank Slate Media his Willis Avenue location has more meaning than the others.
“This is my baby; this is where I started. I know people here. They were children, now they have grandchildren,” he said. “I’m part of the community. The other stores, they are just a business. This is something different here.”
Williston Park’s loss was acknowledged by the village’s board of trustees at their recent meeting.
“He was a great all-around guy,” Mayor Paul Ehrbar said in part. “He will be missed.”
Ceriello enjoyed the connection he was able to foster with his community through his products.
“Anything to do with food is romantic because you interact with people,” he said in 2015. “I sell you stuff, and you go home and give it to your family — it’s a connection…I sell to the same people every week.”
Ceriello married his first wife, Anna, in 1975 and had two children. In 2003, he married his second wife, Nancy who he lived with at their Dix Hills home.
He is survived by his wife, Nancy, his daughters, Tina and Raffaella, and his grandchildren, Fiona and Rory.
The family has requested donations in his name be sent to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in lieu of flowers.