Little Susie’s corners the pie and coffee market in Old City

If you’re looking for a food business that thrived during the pandemic, ask Dan Martino about Little Susie’s Coffee & Pie, which started on a Port Richmond corner and opened a branch in Old City, appropriately enough, on “Pi(e) Day,” 3/14.

Martino opened Little Susie’s — named after his neighbor’s dog — in early January 2020, two months before the shutdown, specializing in sweet and savory hand pies and La Colombe coffee.

Fortunately, the property at Lehigh Avenue and Belgrade Street has a large window and a wide sidewalk on Lehigh Avenue, a major thoroughfare. With indoor occupancy curtailed, Martino locked the door and set up Little Susie’s for walk-up business. “People who are walking their dogs, or running, or going to work in the morning find [the walk-up window] saves them a lot of the time and pressure of going into a building,” Martino said. It’s also safer for employees, especially at 7 a.m.

It wasn’t exactly what Martino, who lives next door, had wanted. As a musician traveling the country, he frequented coffee shops “because they’re really charming places, often times the center of the community.” That stretch of Port Richmond has its Wawa, Dunkin, and 7-Eleven, but nothing homespun.

Martino is following the same format at the new location, which replaced a longtime passport-photo shop at Second and Chestnut Streets, across from the Customs House. Customers order from a window on the Chestnut Street side and pick up at a Second Street window.

The pie biz was a natural progression for Martino, who with his sister Brianne baked desserts for family functions. When she started working as an overnight nurse at St. Christopher’s Hospital, she brought in quiches for colleagues. Dan Martino said she bowed out of the business soon after it opened.

Pie flavors vary by the season, but the top-seller is pork roll and cheese. There’s an Irish potato version, with shredded coconut and cream cheese baked into a pie crust and toasted with cinnamon sugar, available this week.

Meanwhile, Martino is looking to expand the business, which he’s branding as “America’s coffee shop.”