That flaming trash barrel across from Rittenhouse Square? It’s just a new food store with Italian Market roots.

The gritty vibes of the Italian Market, with its crates of colorful produce next to a rusted, flaming trash barrel, have been brought uptown to tony Rittenhouse Square.

Venditore by Giordano, which opened last week on the ground floor of the office building at 1845 Walnut St., is a produce market and grocery store with pantry items, juices, açai bowls, made-to-order salads and sandwiches, goods from local bakeries Sarcone, Cacia, Aversa, and Merzbacher, and bottled wines, beers from Human Robot, and canned cocktails from Top Dog.

This winter, Venditore will expand into the building’s lobby with an open kitchen to allow chef collaborations and demonstrations.

Venditore, and its Italian Market connection, is Marcello Giordano, 50, whose family has been in the produce business since 1921, when his great-grandparents, Paul and Frances Giordano, opened their landmark stands and store at Ninth Street and Washington Avenue. His cousins run them now.

The flaming trash barrel on Walnut Street was set up to burn propane and is just for show. “I won’t burn any boxes in it,” Giordano said, pausing to add, “hopefully.”

Giordano, who had been in the retail trade all his life with his parents, Joe and Marlene, flipped to wholesale 12 years ago, supplying restaurants and institutions from a warehouse on Front Street in Pennsport. He also has a 105-acre blueberry farm in South Jersey.

On March 17, 2020, when COVID-19 shuttered his restaurant and catering clients, Giordano began offering grocery boxes to his neighbors and partnered with such nonprofits as MANNA, Philabundance, We Are Philly, Puentes de Salud, and the Garces Foundation.

Within a month, he said, the company was selling 2,000 retail boxes. The boxes have remained popular as the wholesale business returned.

Venditore will allow Giordano to straddle his two constituencies. Take the popular restaurant Parc, just across Rittenhouse Square. “Let’s say they run out of something,” Giordano said. “They can run over and pick it up here.”

The future demo kitchen, in turn, would be open to his chef customers, and even retail customers who might want to test recipes and concepts with Venditore chefs Lynda Murtha and Brianna Mirarchi, as well as manager Barb Stefani.

“I hear this all the time,” Giordano said. “‘My aunt’s cousin’s niece has this recipe.’ This is a place where people are going to be able to share those recipes, whether you’re a professional chef or you want to just make something that reminds you of your grandmother. You can come in and sit with our chefs when we have our kitchen here, and they’ll help rebuild an old recipe. Everybody has a story like that, and that’s where this is all going to come together.”

Giordano is also collaborating with Rittenhouse Row, the neighborhood’s marketing organization, to introduce forgotten neighborhood favorites, such as carrot cake inspired by the late Commissary.

Venditore is self-service, but soon will offer a more old-fashioned produce ordering style that Giordano says streamlines the process. Customers will walk in, see what’s available, and order either on a kiosk or directly through an employee (hence, venditore), who will assemble the items and have them ready in moments. The Giordano boxes also will be available for pickup or delivery for orders placed within 10 blocks of the square.

Venditore is directly across Walnut Street from the Rittenhouse Square Farmer’s Market, which operates Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Giordano said Venditore would “enhance” the shopping experience in the neighborhood.

“My grandfather said competition keeps you honest and hungry,” he said, saying that while his produce would be priced affordably, “I won’t lowball. They will have some products that we don’t have, and if [the farmers] have products [that Venditore needs], they can sell us stuff.”

Giordano said he was preparing a storefront in Manayunk as its first location. He was discussing the idea with a friend during a meeting of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association when Allan Domb, the former city councilmember, restaurant investor, and real estate magnate, overheard him.

Domb suggested that he consider a partnership that would include the ground-floor space at 1845 Walnut St., which had been vacant since the coffee shop Joe closed in late 2019. Domb’s offer swayed Giordano, who previously operated autonomously.

Giordano said the Manayunk location, at 4412-20 Main St., would be next, opening in spring 2023, followed by Venditore locations in other neighborhoods.

Rittenhouse Row, meanwhile, is expressing optimism for the area, which was battered both during the pandemic and the civil unrest in May and June 2020.

Though the Barnes & Noble store two doors away will be closing soon pending a move nearby to Chestnut Street, the nonprofit group said it counts 47 new stores scheduled to open in the neighborhood in the coming months, 26 of which are on Walnut Street.