Are these the sauciest chicken cutlet sandwiches in Philly?

As you might guess from the sheer breadth of the name, Collegeville Italian Bakery Pizzeria Napoletana is a lot of things: a bakery, a pizzeria, an ice cream and water ice shop, a market, and a deli. The three buildings stitched together at 3846 Ridge Pike are designed to be like Disney World, according to co-owner Steve Carcarey.

“After a ride, you go through a gift shop,” he says. Go one way, and “we’re forcing you through cakes, cookies, pastries. You go the other way, ice cream, water ice, Nutella bar, Dole Whip.”

You may leave with cannoli, but you probably came to Collegeville Italian Bakery for the cutlet sandwiches — specifically, the Bangin’ Cutlet Sandwich ($11 for a 7-inch, $13.50 for a foot-long). Anchored by two hand-pounded and breaded cutlets on a housemade long roll, the Bangin’ is slicked with so much burrata, blush sauce, and Mike’s Hot Honey that the cutlets and bread can’t possibly soak it all up; half the sauce slides right off the sandwich on first bite. You’d be crazy not to mop it up, though.

That, too, is by design. “It’s all about the dip and drip,” Carcarey says of the bakery’s trademark sandwich, which was added to the menu just over a year ago. The bakery has sold 60,000 Bangin’ cutlet sandwiches since — including one to Marc Vetri, whose sister, Montgomery County Common Pleas Court judge Risa Vetri Ferman, often celebrates her birthday at the bakery.

Carcarey had been cajoling Vetri Ferman to bring in her chef brother for a while, and when Vetri finally showed up in March, he happened to be out. “Would you believe my son had a robotics competition? I’m in Bensalem, my wife sends me a text message — her and Marc Vetri,” Carcarey says, shaking his head. But he got the chef’s number and texted Vetri to ask for feedback.

“I said to him, ‘I’ve been waiting for this day forever. The only way to get better is to learn from the best and that’s you.’ And he says, ‘I know, brother. Sorry you’re not here. It’s really amazing. No B.S.’,” Carcarey says, reading the exchange. “That comes from him. That’s saying something.” Vetri posted about the bakery on Instagram later, noting that he had scarfed down the Bangin’ too quickly to take a photo.

Vetri is far from the only big name to have visited Collegeville Italian Bakery. The walls are lined photos of local celebrities and sports stars sliding pizzas into the bakery’s wood-fired Neapolitan pizza oven: WDAS host Patty Jackson, Fox29′s Bob Kelly, Carson Wentz, Rhys Hoskins, Joel Embiid.

Cutlet sandwiches are perhaps the best known of the bakery’s calling cards, though there are a lot to choose from its menu, which spans four billboard-size boards hanging above its deli case. The chicken for the cutlets is filleted in house every day, pounded, and breaded with the bakery’s own breadcrumbs.

“You can get a cheesesteak anywhere, you can get hoagie anywhere,” Carcarey says. “We’ll put that cutlet up against any sandwich in Philadelphia.”

The Bangin’ was created as a celebration of rosa sauce — the pink-hued combination of tomato sauce, heavy cream, Parmigiano Reggiano, and fresh basil — which is Carcarey’s top choice when his wife and co-owner, Patrizia, makes pasta at home. To follow up on the Bangin’s success, the Carcareys recently added another cutlet sammy to the menu: the MVP, striped with marinara, vodka sauce, and pesto. Though it’s not quite as saucy as the Bangin’, it’s even more eye-catching — so much so that a fellow patron stopped me before I could take a bite.

“Can I take a picture of that?” the woman asked. “My girlfriend loves cutlets.”

Collegeville Italian Bakery Pizzeria Napoletana, 3846 W. Ridge Pike, Collegeville, 610-489-3354, collegevilleitalianbakery.com