Carbone’s Market

This place gets 5 stars for keeping it real. Old school bodega in a blue-​collar town. Sure, you can pick up milk or some Tide for your laundry but the draw is the sandwiches and grinders. I usually order roast beef on a hard roll with lettuce, onion, American cheese, mayo and mustard … Total price $ 6.17 including tax and I have enough food for 2 lunches but cutting this gigantic sandwich in ½. They don’t skimp on the meat so bring your appetite. There’s no where to sit (since it’s a bodega) so you’ll have the resist the urge to eat this bad boy until you make it home. Yum. Yum.

My husband and I are in the process of moving to Torrington. We came across the reviews online and decided to give it a try for lunch today while we were up in the area. Holy cow. These 5 star reviews are beyond accurate. We shared a 12″ roast beef grinder with lettuce, tomato, pickles, peppers, olives and mayo. They do charge for each vegetable you put on your sandwich which adds up quickly. Our sub and a small bottle of soda cost us $ 20. When we opened that monster up, WOW. It literally had two layers of meat. We ate at the picnic tables located across from the deli which was nice. You have to eat these sandwiches in layers, delicious. We both ended up taking some home to finish off for dinner. My husband also grabbed the short rib and scalloped potato meal for $ 6.99. Potatoes were amazing and the ribs were good too. We will def be back but I think I will just get a hard roll or a smaller grinder next time. When you come here for your first experience, you need to get one of the larger sized subs just for the experience. We will be back!

Come hungry. One of the most epic sandwiches I’ve experienced. Worth a stop if you ever find yourself in the area. While the cold cuts aren’t exactly the most premium quality, they know how to construct a sandwich.

I love carbones, I want to marry carbones. I’d sell my soul for a carbones grinder right now.

The best hands down grinder place ever. I do not know of a place like this that provides such value for price. You literally have to dis-​hinge your jaw to wrap your mouth around this sandwich.
The roasted peepers are great as well and I dislike peepers.

Best and biggest grinders on the planet. Overloaded with meat. Fantastic roast beef. 12 inch roast beef grinder costs around $ 12 I think but enough meat on there for a second meal. Well worth it.

The jawbreaker of sandwiches! You get a real bang for your buck at a place like this. I feel the best way to put it is that you’ll get more meat on your sandwich on a same price range as a Subway. That is one of the places I do miss about Torrington.

To this end I still find it hard to believe I used to be able to eat two eight inch grinders a day (roast beef, lettuce, tomato, oinion, provolone cheese, spices, jalapenos, and hot sauce :)

Stopped in today for a sandwich. I haven’t been there in many years due to moving away from the area but WOW, same quality and goodness as I remember. I had a turkey, Swiss, lettuce, tomato on a hard roll. Absolutely awesome sandwich. I need to come back more often! Don’t go for the ambience as it is a local market. Very good, quality food. Definitely not a Subway.

I recently came in and ordered the rib eye sandwich with roasted peppers. It was a wow!!!
I ate it over a four day period. Wow again!!!

It’s kind of like what Mitch Hedberg said about jewish delis.
«Can i get you anything else?»
«Yea, a loaf of bread and some other people?»
Huge sandwiches. Dropped in and had the Italian Combo. Great bread, decent meat. Ended up pulling half the meat off and just saving it for later, and making another sandwich on a roll. They had White Rock seltzer which is great. Other than that, no real issues positive or negative. Just good, huge sandwiches.

These sandwiches are HUGE to a disadvantage, in my opinion. They have a good flavor but they are so difficult to eat and seems like it could be a waste for one person. The smallest grinder is an 8 inch and I swear it’s gotta have 1.5lbs of meat on it.
The great part about this place is that my husband and I can share an 8 inch grinder and be completely full. It was still difficult to eat, although it was cut in half. Bread was very soft and fresh, the toppings were fresh and crunchy it had a good flavor. Not my favorite but certainly not my least. You get your money’s worth here, that’s for sure. And the little grocery store was cute, I’m glad I stopped in!

Italian combo with roasted reds was exceptional.
Great value considering it was lunch and dinner

I have never tried their grinders, but I am giving Carbone’s 5 stars based on my relatively unique experience with their customer service.
I am a Connecticut Yank living in San Jose, Ca. Today I placed an order for two large grinders to be delivered to my family in the ICU at Charlotte Hungerford as my uncle was going in for emergency surgery and my family had been pretty much at the hospital since the early morning on Father’s Day. I felt helpless and I wanted to do SOMETHING to give my support to my aunt and my cousins. Flowers seemed cliché but I started thinking, «I bet they would appreciate some kick ass grinders!» So I turned to the internet and Carbone’s came up as pretty much the best grinders in Torrington. I was sold, but hoped they would deliver since it does not say they do on their website.
After speaking with a young woman she passed me over to the manager who was so patient and wonderful! He hooked me up with a couple of sammies and assured me that they would arrive by a specified time. My cousin let me, without any hesitation, that the grinders were INCREDIBLE and HUGE! (Apparently I over-​estimated how much they would need since I was clueless about the size)
Thank you, Carbone’s! My family was well-​fed while waiting for my uncle to get through surgery. I would like to add that, as of now (still the day of) he is recovering and my family is enjoying the leftover grinders that they did not finish at lunch.

Located in the middle of nowhere in Torrington, off the beaten path, is Carbone’s Market. They make the most meat-​filled sandwiches you have ever seen! If you want lunch for a week, grab a sub from here and refrigerate well. They’re a little stingy on the cheese, but that’s par for the course in this area. If you do order a cheese sandwich though, they are extremely generous.
I would be shocked if anyone purchased anything from Carbone’s that wasn’t sub related — ei, soda and chips. If you’re bored waiting in line, check the expiration dates on some of the canned goods! Given the sodium levels I’m sure they’re fine to eat, but indicative of what their turnover must be.
The place is a Torrington institution, and given the local paraphernalia and New England sports items, they are loyal to their people as well.

In the interest of keeping things fresh I recently stopped into Carbone’s for research (aka I hadn’t been here in a while and wanted to update my review). I got an 8″ roast beef and was not disappointed.
I still maintain that they’re a bit overrated, as I prefer Salerno’s by the police station, but if you want to feed a small army with $ 10, this is the place to go.
They’re not a particularly convenient place to get to, welcome to the Torrington hood (no, really — the South End is as ghetto as Torrington gets).
That said, Carbone’s is an institution — and recently I heard that the owner is looking to sell the whole shebang and retire. I hope whoever buys it maintains the reputation of this place.

Another great example of why I love Unilocal!
In 2012, a Unilocal review sent me to the Pajer Superette in Agawam, MA to get some of the insanely largest sub sandwiches I had ever seen. Today, another Unilocal review sent me 41 miles southwest of Pajer to find a sandwich place that outperforms Pajer.
Welcome to Carbone’s Market in Torrington. No telling how long it’s been there. If you told me 50 years, I’d believe you. It’s not located on any of Torrington’s main drags. Oak Ave is a residential street and it runs west of Route 8, more or less near an electrical sub-​station. So it won’t win any awards for curb-​side appeal, but it sure wins the Gold Medal for sub sandwiches.
Subs come in 8″, 12″, and 15″ sizes. We ordered a 12″ turkey for $ 14.36. The beast was immense –see the many photos posted here. We cut it in half, then cut one half into halves. Each half was the size of a hard roll. There was at least an inch and a half of turkey piled high on crusty Italian bread. Basically, we ended up with four gigantic turkey sandwiches for about $ 3.50 each. Bread was fresh, the turkey was very good, the tomatoes and romaine was very fresh. It was a work of art.
I also had a cup of sausage shrimp gumbo, and tell me, how can any food loving person pass THAT up? It had a great spicy taste with bits of sausage all over the place.
Pajer is a neighborhood grocery too, with canned goods, a dairy case, and a small bakery.
It’s also a shrine to the NY Giants with posters all over the front and side walls, some NY Giant beach balls, and Super Bowl wood signs nailed to an adjacent storage garage.
What a cool place! Go check it out and see for yourself.

Took a road trip out to Torrington on a Sunday to check out Carbone’s Market. I didn’t realize ahead of time that it’s just a straight market, nowhere to sit and eat. I got a 12 inch Italian combo with the works — mayo + spicy mustard and hot peppers. I’m not sure why I thought 8 inch wouldn’t be enough. I finished half of it somehow and ate the other half for dinner. Weighed it like other reviewers, it came in at 3.5 lbs. Carbone’s puts most sandwich shops to shame. On par with Franklin Giant Grinder for sure. It wasn’t the tastiest sandwich I’ve ever had but it was very good and gets 4 stars for making sandwiches how they are meant to be made! Would definitely return if I was in the area.

I was way out of my normal area and saw the reviews so figured I’d give it a try. I got the Italian combo but substituted capicola for domestic ham. An 8 inch.
The roll is soft, which I like. The amount of ingredients amazed me and the soft bread soaked up the oils from the freshly roasted peppers.
I barely could finish half of the 8 inch but polished it off once I got home.
This is a place I would recommend to anyone in the area.

Stopped in last night, as we were up in Torrington and I had heard a lot about this place and wanted to try it out. We both ordered the Italian Combo (Ham & Genoa) — SUPER GENEROUS amount of meat on those grinders (see my pic). The onions on my fiancée’s sandwich were way potent, very over-​powering.
Place is a bit dumpy, and the crew at Cabone’s is «All Business» (no small talk, that’s for sure). But they serve decent sandwiches, just expect them to be seriously loaded with deli meat.