Tacconelli’s opens its second N.J. pizzeria, in Haddon Township
Vince Tacconelli, 30, the fifth generation, is running this parlor with his wife, Jessica. Like his father's shop in Maple Shade, it is cash-only.
Sixteen months after buying a former menswear shop on Haddon Avenue in the Westmont section of Haddon Township, Vince Tacconelli Sr. and his son, Vince Tacconelli Jr., have fired up the ovens at their second South Jersey pizzeria.
Tacconelli’s opens Feb. 4 at 146 N. Haddon Ave., joining a crowded field of pizzerias stretching along the avenue’s commercial district from Collingswood to Haddonfield.
Working side by side in Maple Shade, the Tacconellis have built a tidy business with a menu that includes a few pastas, a few salads, house-made gelato and other desserts, and espresso. Like Maple Shade, this location is cash-only.
The South Jersey locations are unrelated to the original Tacconelli’s on Somerset Street in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond section, run by Vince Sr.’s brother and his family. (Their affiliation had been litigated in a now-settled federal court case involving the trademark of the “Tacconelli’s Pizzeria” name.)
Vince Jr., 30, runs the Westmont location with his wife, Jessica, also 30, an accountant. “It’s all his,” Vince Sr. said the other night, as he boxed up a white pizza with green peppers and anchovies to take home to his wife, Doris, leaving his son to work.
To accommodate both dine-in and takeout orders, the new Tacconelli’s has three ovens in its vast open kitchen — two for pizzas and one for a revolving menu of oven-baked pastas, available as appetizers and entrees. Pizza prices are $13.50 to $18, plus toppings.
A luscious seafood cannelloni stuffed with ricotta and shrimp and napped with seafood bisque and dusted with pecorino and sun-dried tomatoes, for example, was on the menu Thursday during final preopening tests. Also available are gnocchi or campanelle with either pesto or Gorgonzola; rigatoni in a pork ragu; and bucatini Amatriciana with guanciale and grana Padano. Figure on $9.95 for app size, $17 for entrees.
The pasta side is all Vince Jr. , who said a high school job at Osteria gave him a taste of the culinary life and steered him to study at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
But CIA training can’t claim credit for the family-tested dough recipe, which yields a very thin-crusted pie with a crispy bottom.
The new shop opens at 4 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday, and at 3 p.m. Sunday, and will do its last seating at 9 p.m., “but if we’re still working in here and someone comes in, we won’t turn them away,” he said.
A short history of Tacconelli’s
Their restaurant, its pizza — and a few Vinces — trace their lineage to Giovanni Tacconelli, who emigrated to the United States from Sicily just after World War I and set up a bread bakery with a 20-foot-by-20-foot brick oven on Somerset Street in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia. His sons joined him as they came of age, but he stopped baking bread when they were drafted into the military to serve in World War II.
After the war, Tacconelli started making what was popularly known in the Italian American enclave as tomato pie. He later handed the business to son Anthony, who in turn left the business to son Vince and his wife, Barbara.
When Vince and Barbara retired in 1998, the fourth generation took over.
Their son Vince and his wife, Doris, ran the pizzeria for four years. In 2003, they opened a location on Lenola Road, across from Moorestown Mall. In 2014, they moved it to a former five-and-dime on Main Street in Maple Shade and brought in their son, Vince III, the fifth generation
Meanwhile, John Tacconelli ― Vince and Barbara’s oldest son and Vince’s brother — has run the Port Richmond location with his family. This is the shop famous for encouraging customers to order their dough in advance. Maple Shade and Haddon Township have no such policy.
The businesses operate separately.