BY JOHN CROPLEY, The Daily Gazette

SCHENECTADY — There’s coffee flowing and pizza baking at the new market/restaurant on Eastern Avenue at Prospect Street.

Mangino’s Gourmet Market expects to open for full service in a month but is now serving a partial menu on reduced hours as a training experience for the new staff.

Owner Rick Mangino was born into a family of Italian restaurateurs and plans a mostly Italian menu, plus classic non-Italian comfort food he expects will be an important part of the business plan.

Mangino’s Ristorante — the landmark on the south shore of Saratoga Lake that his grandparents and then parents ran from 1946 to 2018 — figures prominently in the new establishment, both visibly (mementoes are sprinkled all about) and behind the scenes (Rick Mangino’s sense of running a restaurant).

“I grew up there,” he said. “When I was a little kid, I started out rolling meatballs at 8 years old with my grandmother. She put a box down and said ‘stand on this.’”

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