Seattleites and fans of cured meat everywhere: Armandino Batali has retired from his acclaimed retirement project Salumi, leaving day-to-day operations in the hands of his daughter Gina Batali and her husband Brian D'Amato, who've technically been running and making the meats since 2005. Since then, "she's trained more staff and tried to improve the efficiency and minimize the wait time in a line that often snakes around the corner of the building on Third Avenue South, between South Main and South Jackson streets. "Of course, we don't want to be too efficient," she said, "because then we wouldn't be able to talk to people."
Hsiao-Ching Chou of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says Armandino and his wife are sailing around the Caribbean on a vegetarian cruise!; when they get back from visiting son Mario (yes, that Batali—the love of meat runs strong in the family) he'll still be going into Salumi on Thursdays to deal with the USDA inspector and talk to customers.
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