Villa di Roma restaurant in South Philly to reopen after a 3-month shutdown
Water pipes under the South Philadelphia restaurant had been leaking. The owner said only the kitchen will be new, not the food.
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Villa di Roma, the popular Italian Market restaurant founded during the Kennedy administration, will reopen Wednesday after a three-month shutdown to repair the century-old water pipes under the kitchen.
The restaurant at 936 S. Ninth St. is known for red-gravy specialties. Like much of South Philly, it was built around the turn of the 20th century over a dirt cellar, rather than a stone or concrete foundation.
The repairs, which started in July, involved dismantling the kitchen, excavating the floor, replacing the leaky pipes, backfilling and building a new floor, and replacing the kitchen.
Owner Epiphany “Pip” De Luca said at the time that the work would take six to eight weeks.
» READ MORE: A little South Philly history, via Villa di Roma
“These buildings have been good to us. We have to be good to them,” said De Luca, who was 13 in 1963 when his parents, fruit vendors Domenic and Carmella, bought a bar known as Fatty Charlie’s (later Dutchie’s) at 934 S. Ninth St. They followed up by buying Villa di Roma, then a neighborhood restaurant (and now the dining room), at 936. Later, they bought the kitchen-supply store at 932.
De Luca said the changes would be imperceptible to regulars because the dining room was not touched. “The menu is the same, because the customers said, ‘Don’t change anything,’” he said. “We didn’t. What we have works.”