Start spreading the Whiz: Bradley Cooper and Danny DiGiampietro of Angelo’s Pizzeria go into the cheesesteak business in NYC

The black food truck parked Wednesday morning on West Third Street near Sixth Avenue in New York’s Greenwich Village. Its name on the side: Danny & Coop’s Cheesesteaks.

The sandwiches being sold out of the window had a Philadelphia provenance — as were the guys inside the truck. “Danny” is Danny DiGiampietro, owner of Angelo’s Pizzeria in South Philadelphia, and “Coop” is Montgomery County-bred actor Bradley Cooper, whose culinary career includes pizzeria jobs as a kid and a starring role as a troubled chef in the 2015 drama Burnt. (It is important to note that Cooper went through ServSafe food-handling training to receive a health certificate.)

DiGiampietro and his team, including his niece, Gina, and one of his managers Seth Braunstein, packed up the food and drove it to Manhattan Wednesday morning. Cooper met them and, wearing matching black hoodies, they started the flattop before lunchtime. (Cooper rocked Air Jordan 1 Travis Scott sneakers, atypical attire for a grill worker.)

Cheesesteaks were priced at a bargain $10, and the line was long. From the window, DiGiampietro bellowed, “Go Birds!” at people dressed in Eagles gear.

Cooper and DiGiampietro are donating all proceeds from this pop-up event — scheduled to reprise Thursday — to a nonprofit helping to feed New Yorkers in need.

DiGiampietro would say only that he and Cooper hope to open a cheesesteak shop in New York, where they have been searching for locations for two years. “You know what they want in this neighborhood for 700 square feet?” DiGiampietro asked. “Eighteen thousand a month!” (That’s more than double the price for such a space on Walnut Street in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square.)

» READ MORE: A pizza man’s long route from Haddonfield to South Philly (from 2019)

DiGiampietro, who told The Inquirer that he is not leaving his Philadelphia shop, said Cooper chose Manhattan for the truck “to see if people want cheesesteaks in New York.” (They sure do like them in Brooklyn, where South Philadelphia native Dave Fedoroff sells roast pork and cheesesteaks at a busy shop called Fedoroff’s.)

DiGiampietro would not say any more about the business. Could this be part of a media play, such as a reality series? DiGiampietro’s brash, industrious South Philly downtown-guy persona — which plays out daily in his shop’s Instagram stories — seems appealing to television producers.

Is it just two pals trying something new?

Cooper met DiGiampietro in late 2019, several months after Angelo’s opened on Ninth Street near Fitzwater.

Angelo’s had no public phone, and business was walk-in only. DiGiampietro said he had a strict policy of no pictures or autographs for his celebrity customers to keep the atmosphere respectful and low-key.

One day after an Eagles game, his righthand guy, Jared Braunstein, Seth’s brother, was working the counter when he summoned DiGiampietro, who was slinging pizzas behind him.

“Isn’t that...?” Braunstein asked DiGiampietro, nodding discreetly toward a guy at the register with his Eagles hat pulled tight toward his face.

”There had to be 300 people up front, and there’s Bradley Cooper,” DiGiampietro said. “I gave him a nice little nod. He gave me a nod, and I told Jared, ‘Give him the bat phone number.’”

Yes, Angelo’s had a secret number at the time.

A couple of hours later, Cooper texted him. Using extremely colorful adjectives, DiGiampietro recounted how they were the best sandwiches Cooper ever had. “And you know, then we just became friends.”