(From left) Morty’s Market & Deli owners Jay Bayer and Adam Stull (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
After working together for nearly a decade, a pair of veteran food and beverage pros are teaming up to bring a new sandwich shop to North Side.
Aiming for an April debut, Jay Bayer — co-owner of Bingo Beer Co. in Scott’s Addition and former proprietor of the bygone Saison and Saison Market in Jackson Ward — along with Adam Stull of Cambodian-inspired pop-up Royal Pig, are opening Morty’s Market & Deli at 305 W. Brookland Park Blvd.
The duo originally met at the now-shuttered Fan restaurant Flora, in business from 2017 to 2018, where Bayer was a co-owner and Stull an employee. Bingo Beer Co. opened in 2018, and Stull has been working there in addition to operating Royal Pig with co-founder Vanna Hem.
It was in the kitchen at Bingo, while plotting a culinary relaunch for the lager-focused brewery, that the idea for the future sandwich shop began to take shape. A casual comment, followed by time spent perfecting a focaccia recipe, led to a more serious sit-down between the two.
“I was like, ‘Man, I have an idea as to what we could do,’ and it just kind of grew from there,” Bayer says. The new restaurant’s name is a play on the pistachio- and pork fat-flecked Italian cold-cut mortadella rather than a nod to a person, but Bayer says he’s been joking about a fictional character named Morty Sando — a living loaf of mortadella — for years.
“We’ve had fun working together on a bunch of projects, and [Stull] is one of the most underappreciated people in hospitality in the city. He can do so much food- and beverage-wise, so we kind of kicked around ideas,” Bayer says. “We recognized a common ground in terms of goals of food and our approach to hospitality.”
Living in North Side since 2016, Bayer says that when he saw the space a short walk from his house, previously operating as Brookland Park Market and Brookland Park Kitchen, had become available, he seized the opportunity.
“I’ve had a bunch of concepts that are just like, ‘If the right place comes available’ or ‘If the right moment happens,’” Bayer says. “I’m super excited to get back in and help a team come together.”
For Stull, this marks his first stint as owner of a brick-and-mortar restaurant. The Philadelphia native, who moved to Richmond over a decade ago, says, “It just feels good to finally have an opportunity and be able to branch out into that part of the business. ... [I have] been running other people’s spaces for a long, long time now. It seems kind of a natural progression at this point.”
The menu at Morty’s will be a mix of sandwiches, small plates and salads, drawing influence from the cuisine of the Balkan countries of southeastern Europe and incorporating elements from Italy and Philadelphia, too.
Think pickled veggies, hot peppers, veg-forward spreads and purees, pops of briny cheeses. While menu planning is still in progress, the pair mention stacks of thinly sliced mortadella, combined with pesto, stracciatella and marinated peppers; crispy slow-cooked porchetta on housemade focaccia; lively condiments such as ajvar (roasted sweet bell peppers and eggplant); cabbage rolls; and cevapi, a deftly seasoned, garlic-heavy grilled Balkan sausage.
“What we are trying to do with Morty’s is introduce some things that I think will be new to a lot of people,” Bayer says. “I don’t think a lot of Balkan stuff is super well known … but it’s so approachable and so delicious, and I think it lends itself really well to sandwiches.”
Bayer and Stull hope for Morty’s to become a reliable neighborhood hub with a familiar staff. They envision a place people can pop into multiple times a week, scoring a sandwich during lunch, picking up a meal from the grab-and-go case, or pulling up post-work for a classic cocktail or beer on tap. The shop will also offer a hefty wine selection, over 70 bottles from Slovenian orange to relatable reds and Macedonian and Serbian whites, including everything from price-conscious options to vintages meant to impress.
In terms of decor, they plan to add fresh pops of paint in shades like eggplant and paprika, install a new bar top and add their own bright, retro touch.
Morty’s isn’t Bayer’s first experience with a neighborhood market. For a decade he operated Saison and its adjacent namesake market, which established itself as a community staple. While he often hears that patrons miss the restaurant, he says, it’s the departure of the market and casual eatery that people lament the most.
“It really showed me how valuable to the community spaces like that are, and knowing that this neighborhood doesn’t really have that kind of thing, you just feel the neighborhood breathe through the space. That’s really where the majority of the vibe came from and what we’re kind of working towards in the [new] space.”
Morty’s Market & Deli will be open Sunday through Thursday from noon to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from noon to midnight.
