Any day now, the new sandwich shop Casa Cugine will open in Brooklyn. “We’re just waiting on the last permits,” says the shop’s namesake, Cugine, the Staten Island–born influencer known for videos of cooking massive slabs of meat or complaining about being “down horrendously” after a long night out. He’s finalizing a short menu that — for now — includes the Hey Toots (turkey and spicy soppressata); the How Ya’ Doin,’ a.k.a. the Madone (chicken cutlet and broccoli rabe); and a combination of thin-sliced roast beef, caramelized onions, horseradish spread, and a cup of juice he’s calling Ya Sista. He wants to serve his beloved Diet Coke — “D.C.’s” as he calls them — on draft.
The names will already be familiar to any of Cugine’s 4 million combined followers on TikTok and Instagram, all some version of recurring joke or simply a reference to the amped-up Italian American persona he’s created. But Casa Cugine is a legitimate business, and Cugine, whose real name is Danny Mondello, is entirely serious about turning it into a success. “I’m seeing my friends who make videos starting to level up, and we always look at things like success for one of us is success for all of us, but I realized I needed to do something new,” he says while looking over a gelato case that’s just arrived. “I can’t be making videos when I’m 70.”
If you’ve watched any of Cugine’s videos, and then another, it’s likely the algorithms-that-be have served you others from his fellow Italian American pals, all with strong New York cred and stronger New York accents. Lil Mo Mozzarella, Mario Bosco, and the Growing Up Italian crew have all amassed millions of followers (and helped give rise to the next generation of Italian American content creators by supporting the meteoric rise of the cherub-faced 9-year-old viral phenom known as the Rizzler). They have no problem playing around with stereotypes, but the detail that most strongly unites the Italian American Cinematic Universe is food: Lil Mo talks his followers through restaurant menus. Growing Up Italian co-host Rocco Loguercio extolls the virtues of cannoli and rainbow cookies. The Rizzler offers his thoughts on Torrisi’s tortellini (“tastes like pineapples”).
Some food influencers rose to fame by impersonating Bourdain or Fieri, dropping into restaurants to have their minds “blown” by whatever cheesy, stretchy, caviar-covered dish they’re eating on-camera. Cugine gained his following by filming himself cooking red-sauce classics while always adding a giant handful of jokes that wouldn’t be allowed on Food Network: Pieces of garlic are “Guinea bombs”; sausages need to be stabbed “like we’re on Rikers Island.” Underneath the schtick is a guy who actually knows how to cook. Part of that comes from his family, the rest is from the time Cugine spent working in restaurants and delis before digital fame. “My last job was working in a kitchen,” he says. “I started my account and the other guys I worked with would let me know if what I was saying was funny or not.”
For all the jokes, Cugine takes his Italian American background seriously. He says he chose the location for the shop — just under the BQE — because Fortunato Brothers bakery is in one direction, Bamonte’s in the other. On the same stretch, Carmine’s Pizzeria and Emily’s Pork Store continue to thrive. His own space used to be Caffe Capri, the first Italian café in the neighborhood back in the 1970s. They had an iced-coffee recipe he’s bringing back as a tribute: “It’s really time consuming, but it comes out like …” he thinks for a second. “Sort of like a slush, where they’d freeze the coffee, then take it out and let it defrost for a while and do it up. All the hipsters and yuppies loved it when they started moving here.”
Along with the coffee, and some gelato, sandwiches will be the main draw he tells me while he shows me the corner where his “personal table” will be. More than anything, he wants to do something that has the feel of an old Italian social club where anybody can visit if they want a sandwich.
Still, no matter how strong the ties some of the local businesses and lifers have to places like Naples or Sicily, it’s still Williamsburg, and Williamsburg is beyond the pale when it comes to gentrification. An influencer with millions of followers knows he’ll have a line of clout chasers streaming their wait to try Ya Sista, but Cugine shrugs when I say that. “It’s still an Italian neighborhood, and I gotta make sure they like it.”
When I ask how his friends a few doors down at Anthony & Son Panini Shoppe feel about another sandwich place opening up, Cugine laughs and tells me they’re the ones who helped him find the space. Sabino Curcio, the “son” in the shop’s name, confirms this. “The way we see it, it’s good for the neighborhood and the culture,” he says. “People come to get a sandwich from us one day, they get a sandwich from Cugine another, maybe they go to Emily’s another day — we all win.”
