Pork Roll Pete’s restaurant brings authentic New Jersey cuisine to Manatee
Pete Ferraro spent the last six years in Manatee County looking for some comfort foods from his native New Jersey.
Realizing there was a void, Ferraro teamed up with AJ Altes and Chuck Casagrande to open Pork Roll Pete’s at 4657 Cortez Road W. in the Bradenton Commons shopping plaza.
Serving breakfast and lunch, Pork Roll Pete’s features signature bagels and New Jersey’s iconic pork roll sandwich.
“I saw a need for it,” Ferraro said. “I do work all over Manatee and Sarasota County, and there’s really nothing similar to what we have here.”
Altes was teaching at Bradenton’s Moody Elementary when Ferraro approached her about opening a breakfast and lunch spot.
“I said, ‘Do you want to do this,’” Ferraro, who also owns a construction company in the area, said. “And she’s like, ‘Yeah, I think it would work.’”
Authentic Jersey restaurant opens in Bradenton
So they ordered a KitchenAid mixer and some ingredients to try their hand at making bagels inside their apartment.
“They came out decent (and) I said, ‘Well, if I could do this in 10 minutes with a water filtration system in my house, we should be able to find something that we could really do this with,’” Ferraro said.
Ferraro took bagel-making to the next level after researching and figuring out a business plan. They secured a 1,800-square-foot location off Cortez Road next to Publix, and installed a patented New York water filtration system for their bagels.
“(It) duplicates the properties of New York City water … and it’s made a difference for us,” Ferraro said.
Pork Roll Pete’s, which seats 30, has a dozen different types of bagels and various breakfast sandwiches that can be served on a bagel, hard roll, semolina bread or wrap.
The PRP Special, which is two fried eggs, thin-sliced pork roll and American cheese, is a signature item.
The Simple Man, Altes said, is also a popular breakfast sandwich.
“That’s just an egg and cheese, and they would just add bacon, sausage (or) ham,” Altes said.
The bagels get started at 4 a.m. every day and are kettle-boiled with the New York water system.
“Our flour is Grade A top-notch flour,” Ferraro said. “We don’t skimp on the ingredients.”
Pork Roll Pete’s uses a supplier from the Northeast for their bread and the famous Carnegie Deli supplies pastrami.
Customers can order from a variety of cold and hot lunch sandwiches, including The Godfather, which includes imported Italian prosciutto di Parma, chicken cutlet, fresh mozzarella, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil and a balsamic glaze.
The restaurant also has a coffee bar, side dishes, assorted beverages and desserts.
“Muffins, crumb cake, New York cheesecake,” Ferraro said.
What’s a pork roll?
But the pork roll is one of the restaurant’s signatures. A pork roll is a type of processed pork meat. John Taylor invented it in New Jersey, according to The Original Taylor Pork Roll. Most of the state calls it a pork roll, while the northern part calls it Taylor ham.
Even former President Barack Obama weighed in on the longstanding debate during a 2016 Rutgers University commencement speech.
“I come here for a simple reason, to finally settle this pork roll versus Taylor ham question,” Obama said at the time. “I’m just kidding. There’s not much I’m afraid to take on in my final year in office, but I know better to get in the middle of that debate.”
Hours of operation
Ferraro and Altes, who are from Middletown, New Jersey, call it a pork roll. The breakfast, bagel and sub shop is open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For more information, visit www.PRPBagels.com.
This story was originally published August 6, 2025 at 5:50 AM.
