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Fire damages apartments above East Passyunk’s beloved Mancuso & Son grocery shop

The beloved East Passyunk Italian grocery store was unscathed and no one was injured.

Philadelphia Fire Department investigators look at the fire scene from in front of L. Mancuso & Son along Passyunk Avenue near Mifflin Street. There was a fire in the apartments above the beloved Italian grocery store on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.
Philadelphia Fire Department investigators look at the fire scene from in front of L. Mancuso & Son along Passyunk Avenue near Mifflin Street. There was a fire in the apartments above the beloved Italian grocery store on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.Read moreAlejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

A fire broke above the beloved South Philly Italian grocery shop Lucio J. Mancuso & Son early Thursday morning.

Firefighters were on the scene just after 5:30 a.m. after smoke began billowing out of the second-floor apartments above the East Passyunk mainstay. The blaze was under control in less than 30 minutes, a fire department spokesperson said, and no injuries were reported. The fire marshal is investigating the cause.

Mancuso & Son co-owner Jimmy Cialella said that the fire didn’t hit the shop, but that it still would be closed for “at least a couple of days” to repair some damage caused by “firefighters needing to be firefighters.”

The front door was torn off its hinges and at least one window was broken, Cialella said from the doorway of Mancuso & Son while gesturing to the tiled floor that was saturated with water. He said he might use the incident as an excuse to upgrade the storefront, which has a neon green and red sign advertising Mancuso cheese products.

Mancuso & Son has been a cornerstone of East Passyunk since 1940, when the shop’s namesake owner opened it to sell a mix of imported Italian favorites — Calabrian pastas, jars of stuffed olives, and cans of now-trendy tinned fish, among other things — and cheeses made in house. Mancuso’s son Philip took over in the seventies and kept the shop virtually unchanged, slinging homemade ricotta and singing opera arias behind the counter until his death in 2021.

» READ MORE: Phil Mancuso and Angelo Scuderi upheld Philadelphia’s Italian American food traditions

Cialella, who owns Jimmy’s Water Ice on Front and Wolf Streets and learned how to make mozzarella from the Mancusos, took over shortly after alongside his business partner John Denisi. The only change they made was hiring someone to start selling $12 Italian hoagies topped with provolone, prosciutto, capicola, and soppressata.

“Phil Mancuso was an icon,” said Cialella. “We like to think the fire didn’t spread because he was watching over us.”