Restaurant news: Popular New Smyrna Beach sandwich shop opens new location

Manzano's Beachside Deli, a frequented New Smyrna Beach eatery, has expanded, now offering all its savory sandwich selections in its new Port Orange shop.

The deli opened the doors to its second location earlier this month, a highly anticipated move among the shop's loyal community of sandwich lovers. The new shop features the same lengthy, beloved menu of popular handhelds and vibrant, beachy interior that customers know and love.

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According to co-owner Angie Thompson, she and her husband purchased the first beachside deli location back in 2012, with no former plans to ever enter the restaurant business.

The pair had previously put much of their time into house-flipping and other career ventures before stumbling upon the popular deli up for sale in New Smyrna Beach. The too-good-to-pass-up deal led the couple to make the popular beach town purchase, ultimately deciding to play it by ear when it came to the sandwich shop’s future.

Naturally, the two found a passion for the business, evident through the eatery’s decadent, layered handhelds that have stood the test of time over the last decade.

“(I hope) that people just love it,” Thompson said. “I mean when we bought (the first Manzano’s location) we never even intended on being in this industry. We kind of just stumbled upon it, because the guy in New Smyrna was selling it, and we were like ‘Why? The food is so great.’ You know, we loved it — my husband and I — and so we were like, well, you know, if we don’t like it we’ll flip it — because we had been doing house-flipping for several years until the market crashed — but then we found out we loved it. So, we want people to come and enjoy it like we have.”

Alongside the shop’s perfected menu of unique combinations, Boar's Head meats and notoriously massive sandwich servings, one key ingredient in particular has made Manzano’s a go-to lunch spot among much of the local community: its bread. As noted by Thompson, simple though it may seem, this no-brainer component has the potential to make or break any handheld. Whether too soft, too firm, too thin, thick or doughy, a good sandwich starts with great bread — and that’s just what Manzano’s offers.

Like its New Smyrna Beach location, the eatery’s Port Orange shop is bringing a northern touch to its beloved menu, with all bread and bagels flown in straight from New York — and you’ll be sure to taste the difference, trust me.

Whether stopping in for a breakfast selection, a wrap, panini or one of Manzano’s famous sandwiches, you certainly won’t have a lack of options, as the eatery’s menu is vast and varied ranging from the Big Lebowski — ham, turkey, roast beef, provolone, lettuce, tomato, mayo, oil and vinegar — and the Coney Island — corned beef, pastrami, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and homemade Thousand Island dressing — to the Smokey and the Bandit — smoked turkey, bacon, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and honey mustard — and the 911 — spicy Cajun chicken, pepper jack cheese, jalapenos, banana peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and siracha.

My personal favorites, those that truly never fail, range from the tangy, rich Maverick — turkey, chipotle ranch, smoked gouda, bacon, jalapenos, banana peppers, tomato and lettuce — and the meat-layered Goodfella — ham, salami, prosciutto, provolone, lettuce, tomato and parmesan peppercorn dressing — to the juicy Italian Stallion — salami, pepperoni, ham, prosciutto, provolone, lettuce, tomato, red onion, black olives, mayo, oil and vinegar.

Manzano’s also offers tuna, macaroni, potato and pasta salads, among others, sold by the pound, as well as sweet treats that include cookies, brownies, cannoli, pies and cakes.

“We serve the freshest ingredients that we can,” Thompson said. “We bring all our bread from New York, our bagels from New York, because a lot of people say you can’t find good bread down here … and, you know, it’s awesome when you find a great restaurant. We get excited about it, so we want people to be excited about our food … (overtime) we’ve added breakfast, new sandwiches, fryer items, you know, so we just want to make people happy.”

And so far, it seems as though the beloved eatery has done just that, as local customers have continued to praise the newly expanded sandwich shop online.

“So happy to have you in Port Orange!!!! We love your sandwiches!!!” one Instagram user said, while others noted “I’ll be there tomorrow!” and “Congratulations! Much success.”

According to Thompson, Port Orange is a place that simply made sense for Manzano’s, hoping to satisfy not only customers' desires surrounding the eatery's expansion, but also the owners' desires for more stability in this new location.

“We just moved to Port Orange, because it’s a bigger market here,” Thompson said. “In New Smyrna it can be somewhat seasonal and cyclical, you know? You definitely have the highs and you have some lows just with people coming and visiting the beach. So, up here I think we’ll have a little bit more consistency. And a lot of people just love our stuff and have talked about us expanding, so yeah — we found a good deal here, and we were able to build it out, so we were like, OK, let’s do it.”

Manzono’s offers dine-in, pickup, delivery and catering.

Manzano’s Beachside Deli’s new location is located at 4011 S. Nova Road, Suite C, in Port Orange and is open 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. daily. For information, call 386-301-4286 or visit manzanoportorange.com.

Helena Perray is the restaurant and dining writer for The Daytona Beach News-Journal. A New Jersey native and passionate storyteller, she can be contacted at hperray@gannett.com. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook. Support local journalism by subscribing

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: New Smyrna Beach sandwich shop expands to Port Orange