Hoagie with a purpose

Craig Richards/THG Nick Palladino (center) with Dave Bruno (left) and Brandon Bruno (right).

ATCO—Sure, many individuals have attained culinary glory with dishes, drinks, and sandwiches named after them. Select menus across this land contain the legendary lore of cuisine creativity through a time-honored tradition of securing a name sake dish.

Those dishes immortalize the subject in printed and digital menus. And those individuals often reap the glory of such honors; a free meal, a subject of many a local diner discussion, and in some cases the respect earned from a creation worthy of adding to a menu.

To the victor goes the spoils. But what happens when the culinary creation becomes the story?

In Atco, an impromptu creation took center stage when a palate pleasing concoction took on a powerful purpose. Enter two brothers from Hammonton, and a compassionate deli owner in Atco.

Life begins with connections. Nick Palladino, owner of Palladino’s Market in Atco gets his hair cut at Dave Bruno’s place, Bruno’s Barbershop. He gets many gifts for his wife at the Bruno’s family jewelry store David Charles. The brothers frequent the market. In the end, these everyday business encounters develop friendships and ultimately friendships develop deeper significance in the community.

One day just messing around in the market, Dave and his brother Brandon asked if Nick could make a sandwich they had concocted in their head. Palladino obliged and determined it needed a name, deciding on the creator’s themselves, calling it “The Bruno Brothers Sandwich.” But Palladino decided to take it a bit further.

A few weeks later he texted the brothers and said that he was going to run it for a special for a week, giving $2 of every sandwich sale for a cancer fund. Palladino said that he and each brother donated $1 each for every sandwich sale. In the end the efforts raised more than $500.

A week-long sale began in mid-October. Palladino posted the sale on Facebook explaining that they wanted to use the money to send someone battling cancer to a Phillies game.

Nominations were taken from individuals sharing stories of those battling cancer.

Overwhelmed by the response and finding it impossible to choose one out of the compelling stories shared, a random method was used to determine a final individual. Eventually one individual and a guest were treated to a trip to the Phillies first playoff game.

As a sandwich it is a monster feast. It begins with a seeded roll, with two chicken cutlets,

romaine lettuce, shaved parmesan, egg and a homemade buffalo Caesar dressing. While the future of the sandwich remaining on the menu is unclear, its initial purpose as a means to benefit another will remain its true legacy.

A legacy of giving is not left to this particular event itself. The fight against cancer has personal significance to Palladino himself. The desire to encourage someone battling cancer is rooted in his own family experience with the disease.

“My mom had cancer 10 years ago,” Palladino said. “When I opened the market, it opened my audience.”

And that audience is one that allows Palladino to help others on a larger scale. It may be raffling off tickets for a cause or the creation of something like The Bruno Brothers Sandwich to raise funds.

The family’s efforts to raise money began over a decade ago before the market opened. Nick, his wife Nicole and his father were making pickles and selling them to raise money for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a battle his mom was facing at the time.

But the commitment to fighting cancer grew as another family became involved, the work family.

“The way it began in the market was that one of our cashiers got cancer and had to stop school and working at the market,” Palladino said.

That sparked the first market fundraiser as they had a month-long cheesesteak sale.

Ultimately the family was able to donate money from that sale to help their employee.

Fortunately, today that individual is winning her battle and is in remission.

Success from that effort showed that the audience the market has is a powerful tool to reach more people in efforts to raise money for important causes like that of The Bruno Brothers Sandwich.

“So people were coming in and weren’t even buying sandwiches but would give me $20 for the fund. Makes you feel good when the public response like that,” Palladino said. “People are like, I got everything in the world. I don’t know what else to do. I tell them to go help somebody else. There ain’t nothing out there that you can do that can make you feel as good as you when you help somebody else.”