Randi D’Amico, 56, co-owner of Randi’s Restaurant in Northeast Philadelphia and ‘a fighter’

If you have lived in Northeast Philadelphia in the last 15 years, chances are fairly good that you had dinner or attended a banquet at Randi’s Restaurant, a destination in Grant Plaza II in the Bustleton section.

There was a Randi out front: Randi D’Amico, who with her husband, Jim, took over an upmarket Italian restaurant called La Padella in 2005. They kept the white-tablecloth airs, broadened the menu, and featured live music some nights.

Mrs. D’Amico, 56, born Randi Levine, died Wednesday, June 24, at her Northeast Philadelphia home, where she had been under hospice care.

“She was beautiful,” said Jim D’Amico, her husband of 20 years. “And she was a fighter, one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. She had pancreatic cancer, and she had it for six years. That’s how you know how tough she was.”

A 1980 graduate of Northeast High School, Mrs. D’Amico started as a bartender when she was 21. Her husband said he was unsure whether her first job was at the old Frosty’s Saloon in Rhawnhurst or at the Frontenac Bar in Oxford Circle. She worked her way up to manager, and landed at a restaurant called Little Dave’s Bistro near Northeast Philadelphia Airport, where she met her husband. The couple later ran Albert’s Cafe & Grille for seven years before striking out on their own with Randi’s.

Jim D’Amico said she doted on her dogs and cats and “just loved people. And they loved her back.”

Both her husband and her father, Norton Levine, noted her popularity. “If this [funeral] was not [happening during the pandemic], you would need two funeral homes to take care of all the people who’d come,” her father said. Chapel services at Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks Suburban North in Bucks County are now limited to 150 people; masks must be worn.

Besides her husband and father, she is survived by her brother, Mitchell Levine; stepsons James and Nicholas D’Amico; and a granddaughter, Mia Castro. Services will begin at 11:30 a.m. Monday, June 29, at Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks Suburban North, 310 Second Street Pike, Southampton. Burial will be in Montefiore Cemetery, Jenkintown. Contributions toward a college fund for Mia Castro may be directed to Jim D’Amico in care of the restaurant, 1619 Grant Ave., Philadelphia 19115.