South Philly fish market is revived at Samuels & Son
While Ippolito's Seafood is closed for renovations, parent company Samuels & Son has set up a massive tented fish market at its South Philadelphia warehouse for retail sales.
When longtime South Philadelphia seafood merchant Ippolito’s shut down over the summer for an extensive renovation, management slid its retail business to Samuels & Son, its mammoth wholesale division near the sports complex that services many restaurants on the East Coast.
The store, in the lobby of Samuels' lobby at 3400 S. Lawrence St., is branded Giuseppe’s Market, after Giuseppe Ippolito, who started the business from a pushcart in 1929.
The plan in July was to close for a few months and to be back at 13th and Dickinson Streets by fall.
With the work more extensive than anticipated, Sammy D’Angelo and crew have dramatically expanded the product line for the holiday season, erecting a large tent off its loading docks to accommodate large refrigerator cases in addition to the frozen inventory and groceries in the lobby.
This is no fluke. You can find the fixings of a hundred-fishes dinner.
The lobby now sells tins of caviar and crab meat, plus dozens of fish varieties by the pound, live mussels, clams, oysters, and lobster, and prepared foods. Shrimp? You can buy the extra-colossal, wild U-10s all the way down to to petites, which are 51 to 60 to a pound.
There’s swag, too, including T-shirts with logos such as “The Codfather,” a briny homage to The Godfather.
Hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Saturday, till 3 p.m. on Sunday, and till 4 p.m. Christmas Eve. After Christmas, the market will be open Monday to Saturday.
There’s no scheduled return date for Ippy’s.
Also in the South Philadelphia seafood scene, Janet Anastasi Stechman says Anastasi Seafood, which has held down the southeast corner of Ninth Street and Washington Avenue with a retail shop and restaurant for two decades, is looking for a partial move across the street before Valentine’s Day.
A developer bought Anastasi’s building in 2017, planning to demolish it to make way for a five-story mixed-use building with underground parking.
Anticipating a move, Anastasi Stechman and her brother Salvatore bought a building at 1039 S. Ninth St., just across Washington and next to Giordano Produce, to accommodate the retail, takeout, and catering business. The restaurant’s future is uncertain, she said, as she does not know when she will be forced to vacate.