From Tough Times to Running Downtown, Little Tony Talks Sobriety, New Squirrel Hill Location And More

The phone kept ringing in Florida. Antonio Merante was in rehab, trying to get sober for the first time in his life, and by his own account he couldn’t string together 30 minutes clean. On the other end of the line was his best friend’s dad, calling again about an “awesome opportunity for you.”

That opportunity became Little Tony’s Mini Mart in downtown Pittsburgh. Merante, 24, known around the city as Little Tony, sat down with First Impressions TV to talk about getting sober, opening his store, the Taco Tuesday line his mom built, and the second location coming to Squirrel Hill.

Absolute Chaos in Downtown Pittsburgh

Ask what a normal day looks like and he doesn’t hesitate. “I would say on a daily basis running Little Tony’s is absolute chaos yo, in the best way possible.”

His shop sits in the heart of downtown, and the customer list runs from police officers and lawyers to people heading into court and people just getting out of jail. In an eight-hour day, every day, he said he sees everything Pittsburgh has to offer.

He couldn’t pick a single wild encounter because there are too many. The best he could do was the night before the interview, when he walked out of the store and saw a woman relieving herself across the street in broad daylight. He was quick to add that his side of downtown is a nice area. The craziness, as he tells it, comes from the energy inside the store, a love and positivity that he and his crew put out to customers and that seems to pull stories in all day long. He described it as a movie every day. It feels normal to him now, but for someone walking in for the first time, it’s an experience.

Getting Sober and Signing for Little Tony’s Mini Mart

The store came together fast, and not on purpose. In early 2023, a few months before March, Merante went to get help for the first time. He said drugs and alcohol are a huge part of his story, and so is how he bounced back.

While he was in rehab in Florida, his best friend’s dad kept calling. Merante told him he’d let him know. Two weeks later the calls came again, this time with the message that he couldn’t let Tony pass this up and that it could put him on the right path. For someone still fighting to get clean, Merante said, that was terrifying, and he didn’t think much of it.

He came home. About two weeks later, with roughly 60 days sober, his mom asked him to come look at a space with her. It was the building that is now Little Tony’s Mini Mart. He put the rest of his bank account into it and signed, calling it a leap of faith.

Then, while he was fixing the place up and getting it to look the way they wanted, he relapsed. He was out for about three weeks. At some point, he said, he realized he had no choice but to surrender to God, and he got better.

Little Tony’s opened on April 4, 2023, with people in his corner who cared about him and wanted to see him win. Merante said his best friend’s dad never gave up on him, even during stretches when he wasn’t himself.

The store gave him something to show up to every day. He’s trying to live day by day, and he said that’s the whole idea: they show up, even when all hell is breaking loose, and if he can show up, that’s the best he can do for today.

Asked about the risks he took starting out, Merante pushed back on the word. He sees it as taking action when it was needed. For the first six months, sobriety was the focus of his life and the business sat on the back burner, because he knew he had to work on himself before taking chances as an entrepreneur. Every day, he said, he turns his will and his life over to a higher power, and he says it with no shame. He believes good things come to him because he treats the people around him the best he can, and when an opportunity lands in front of him, he chases it.

From a Sidewalk Grill to The Original Pittsburgh Bodega

Food runs in the family. His cousins, relatives and immediate family have all been in small Italian businesses. For six years his family ran a spot in Southpoint that was an Italian market, restaurant and coffee shop all in one. It closed when he was 12 or 13, but he has been around the industry a long time.

Little Tony’s didn’t start out as a food spot. Scroll far enough down the store’s Instagram and you’ll see it was really a mini mart, with a small grill on the sidewalk for a little lunch and no breakfast. The OGs, he said, remember those cookouts.

About six months in, he took a trip to New York, visiting family in the Bronx and staying with his best friend in Manhattan. He watched how the delis and bodegas worked and took in the culture around them, including the viral NYC bodega known for the “Neva neva neva” meme. He came home wanting to bring a full NYC and Italian deli feel to a city that didn’t have one. That’s why the shop calls itself “The Original Pittsburgh Bodega.”

The bodega culture brought bodega requests. Asked about the strangest order he’s gotten, he laughed. “They be coming in like, let me get a bacon egg and cheese with a grabba leaf.” The order is its own meme, started by creators walking into New York delis and asking for exactly that. His answer: “Listen, we don’t do that here.”

Outside of that, the shop accommodates a lot. If they have the ingredients, they’ll make it, even when it gets frustrating.

He still eats his own food, and he’d had his cheesesteak the day of the interview. Plenty of restaurant owners say they get sick of their food. Merante said he’s just tired of cooking it, especially for himself. When someone else makes it, he knows he taught them, so he knows it’s going to be fire.

Mama D, Lasagna and Taco Tuesdays

His favorite food isn’t on the menu. It’s his mom’s homemade lasagna. She cooked for the family, every single night when he was growing up, and in his family, missing dinner meant something was wrong. About once a month the lasagna came out, and that was his thing.

His mom, known as Mama D, runs Taco Tuesday at the bodega. She makes the beef and shredded chicken at home, brings it in to the warmers, and builds her own homestyle tacos. On Tuesdays, he said, the line runs down the block, with people coming from all the way across downtown. Customers get asked how they want their tacos, and it feels like home.

Merante said he supports small businesses over anyone, and he has noticed a real difference when the owner or family is in the store. When blood isn’t behind the counter, he said, it doesn’t feel as homey. Ownership has its downsides too. People assume he’s making a bunch of money and sometimes skip the tip, without knowing what anyone is dealing with outside of work. Times are tough and everything is expensive, he said. In another era, owning a business and working it nonstop might have had him riding around in limos like a neighborhood prince. Now it’s different.

Building the Brand With GioMadeIt and Content

Merante doesn’t call himself a content creator. He linked up with the right people, chief among them GioMadeIt, who helped put who he is on display online. He said he has never once acted in a video. What you see is what really happens at Little Tony’s Mini Mart. And it has helped the business. It’s a grind, he said, but if he keeps putting videos out, people keep coming in.

He met Gio around 16 through music, back when he was making songs with artists around the city. Tree Burke, a close friend since they were young, helped connect them. When the store opened, Gio came down, dropped off clothes from his brand Visions Attire, did a promo shoot, and told him to reach out if he ever needed anything.

A year in, Merante wanted to take social media seriously. He’d already been burned once by someone who shot a few reels for him and, in his view, charged way too much. To him, 45 minutes of someone’s time and three reels weren’t worth several hundred dollars. So he hit up Gio, and it’s been history since. Most of the content on the store’s page was filmed or edited by Gio.

Gio’s recent move to Florida has slowed things down. Even when other camera operators shoot at the store now, Merante pays them for filming and sends the footage to Gio to edit, a loyalty he says he can’t shake. Gio knows the store like the back of his hand, and the two have real chemistry. Merante admitted he has a hard time trusting people, but he and Gio have talked on deep levels, and he called Gio a good person who means well by everyone. He even rode along when Gio moved to Florida on the Visions On Wheels bus, the school bus Gio converted into a clothing store and made a series about, stopping in North Carolina, South Carolina and plenty of other places on the way down.

The store’s page has also featured Pittsburgh content creator Eblaise, Pittsburgh rapper Shum Koachella, Lou Ratchet and others. Shum Koachella still comes back to the store. Lou Ratchet, the Pittsburgh comedian and viral influencer, was the biggest. He was the first person Merante ever reached out to for a collab, and Merante was ready to pay him. Lou did it for free and shot a video at the store for his own channel too. Merante said he has never paid for a collab or promo of any kind.

Squirrel Hill, Saturdays and Sandy’s 7:15 Coffee

The second Little Tony’s is coming to 2030 Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill, minutes from Allderdice High School, where students hang out on Murray after school. That matters to Merante. He feels the love from young people on social media, but the downtown shop runs 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and with just him, Mama D and sometimes a helper, teens rarely get a chance to stop by. He’s excited to see that impact up close once Murray Avenue is open with longer hours.

The plan for Squirrel Hill is 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Saturday is the big one. His people out in Washington County and other out-of-towners have never been able to come on a weekend.

Downtown, Mama D wants to retire there and will run the location primarily. Hours may shrink, possibly to 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., but he stressed nothing is confirmed and nobody should freak out.

As for what keeps him going, he named the people, the business, and a customer named Sandy, who comes in at 7:15 a.m. on the dot every day for her coffee. He gets up so she gets it. Beyond that, he believes his will and God’s will are the same: keep showing up, spread positivity in the city, and do right by people and by God.

Asked for a message to young people, he kept it simple. “It’s been said a million times, it’s gonna be said a million, billion times again, you are who you surround yourself with and it’s one hundred percent true.”

He said it’s rougher for young people today, and influence is stronger than ever. What you watch on social media, who you hang out with and what you take part in become your results. Go to church with five guys trying to get closer to God, he said, and you’ll probably be closer by the end of the month. Spend your days with guys giving in to what the world has to offer, and that’s where you’ll end up. His last word was that you don’t need love from anyone else. The one person you really need it from is yourself.