Sandwich shop loved by Manchester City players announces plans for new deli

A popular Italian sandwich shop famed for its giant focaccia has revealed its expansion plans. Ad Maiora, which started out from a small flat a couple of years ago, has confirmed it will be opening a brand new deli.

The sandwich shop, which has served up delights for the likes of Manchester City players Mateo Kovacic and Erling Haaland, shared its ‘next step’ with followers earlier today, announcing news of an ‘authentic’ Italian deli shop coming to Manchester. An opening date has not yet been announced.

Ad Maiora is the brainchild of Sardinian couple Daniela Steri and Enrico Pinna who started their business out of their flat in Manchester's Northern Quarter. They both quit their jobs at the end of 2022 to start selling authentic Italian sandwiches, and have quickly amassed a huge following of bread lovers across the city who can’t get enough of their giant butties.

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In a post shared with their 16,000 followers on Instagram, the sandwich pros wrote: “A little over a year ago, we were leaving our jobs to devote ourselves completely to our crazy project!

“We started from 0, trading from a small flat, and we were doing 3 flights of stairs to get each order to our customers! (DON'T TELL THE AGENCY PLEASE). A year later we have 2 small kitchens, one in Ancoats and one in Salford and have fed all of Manchester City football players with our Home-Made sandwiches.

“Now we are ready for the next step, opening an authentic Italian deli shop in town! It will be something crazy and we are sure you will love it.

“Thank you all for your support and trust! Without you it would not have been possible. Ad Maiora will be in town soon!”

Fans of the shop were quick to congratulate the team too. One wrote: “Amazing work! Well and truly deserved.”

Mia’s Arepas, a Venezuelan restaurant based out of Freight Island, added: “Congratulations guys. Can’t wait to visit the new shop in town.”

The business, which also has sites on Radium Street in Ancoats and inside the Salford Quays’ food hall, Kargo Mkt, took social media by storm last year with ‘The Beast’ - a mammoth sandwich which weighs in at more than 1kg and has more than ten authentic Italian ingredients crammed into its freshly baked bread.

After beating Manchester United in the derby in March, Manchester’s City’s stars also tucked into the shop’s massive sandwiches. Striker Erling posed for a picture with Ad Maiora's delighted owner Enrico and asked for three focaccia to take away from the event at City following the match.

Daniela told the MEN earlier this year: "City invited us over after winning the derby, it was a treat for the players and staff of Manchester City. We made our sandwiches in their kitchens, we got to see all the players, they took us around to show us everything, it was amazing.

"We got to see Erling Haaland, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, Kevin De Bruyne, everybody. Haaland even asked for a takeaway and so we made him three huge sandwiches to take away with him!"

In April, the shop attracted huge queues as it gave away food for 9p to celebrate the ninth birthday of the Deliveroo app. They partnered with the delivery app for the special occasion to create a very limited edition ‘scran-wich’ sandwich weighing more than 500 grams.

The dish featured nine special elements inspired by Manchester, including spicy ‘supersonic’ salami, ‘nowt better’ N’duja and mozzarella ‘footballs’. Sliced Haçienda heritage tomatoes, ‘r kid’ Italian wild rocket, ‘0161’ olives, lashings of ‘mad fer it’ mayonnaise, ‘buzzing bee’ basil leaves and ‘let’s ave it’ red onions, also featured.