Middle Village Tattoo is a Queens tattoo shop built around careful custom work, direct communication, and the idea that clients should understand the decisions behind the tattoos they wear.
Founder Marco DeLuca grew up with family spread between Middle Village and Glendale. As a teenager, he was the kid who was always drawing on notebook covers, copying album art, and sketching the buildings he passed around Queens. Tattooing eventually gave him a way to combine that habit with work that was personal to somebody else. He spent years developing his craft around New York, learning as much from conversations with clients as he did from drawing and tattooing.
Over time, Marco realized he wanted to build a shop closer to the neighborhoods he already considered home. He liked the idea of a place where a client from Middle Village, Glendale, Ridgewood, or Forest Hills could start a serious custom project without automatically assuming they needed to travel into Manhattan. Middle Village Tattoo grew from that idea: make strong work locally, keep the atmosphere grounded, and let the quality of the planning matter as much as the style of the finished image.
Marco later brought Nina Patel and Luis Hernandez into the team because their approaches complemented his own. Nina's patient, reduction-focused drawing style suited fineline and compact designs, while Luis brought a strong eye for tonal structure, portraits, and black and grey work. The three do not try to make every tattoo look the same. What they share is a belief that the client deserves clear guidance, realistic expectations, and a design that has been considered as a tattoo rather than simply copied from a screen.
We focus on Black And Grey Tattoos, Fineline Tattoos, Piercing, Cover Up Tattoos, Portrait Tattoos, and Walk In Tattoos. Each service has its own page so you can see exactly what is involved before you call.
We are based around Middle Village and serve New York, including Middle Village, Ridgewood, Rego Park, Forest Hills, Glendale, Maspeth, Kew Gardens, and Woodhaven.
The reference matters, but so does the reason a client chose it. We ask questions first so the design reflects the part of the idea that actually matters.
We give practical feedback about size, detail, placement, and cover-up limitations. A clear no or a better alternative is more useful than agreeing to something we do not believe will translate well.
A small first tattoo and a multi-session portrait project are different jobs, but both are permanent. We give each one the planning it needs.
Middle Village is home base, and we want the shop to be a place clients from surrounding Queens neighborhoods can return to over the years.
Meet the people who answer the phone and do the work on our Meet the Team page, or see how to join us on our Careers page.
Have a reference image, an old tattoo you want to change, or just the beginning of an idea? Send us the details and we can talk through the next step.
Free — no obligations