La Famiglia rolls back prices to its 1976 opening
Giuseppe Sena is offering 1976 prices on Mondays and Tuesdays in July and August.
It was the summer of 1976. Philadelphia celebrated the Bicentennial, the Phillies were on their way to winning the National League East, and a Neapolitan-born chef named Carlo Sena opened a white-tablecloth restaurant on Front Street in Old City with his family.
La Famiglia - an Old World Italian counterpoint on the block to the staid French room La Truffe - was a testament to damask and marble. A grappa collection sat on the fireplace mantel. The wine collection, even then, was enormous, stored in a cellar that reached down to the building's 17th-century foundation.
And the prices: Shocking! A steak was $16. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that's $67.55 in today's dollars.)
In the last 40 years, not too much has changed. Papa Sena passed in 2011, and his son Giuseppe runs the place.
Giuseppe has gone all nostalgic on this 40th anniversary.
For Mondays and Tuesdays in July and August, he's selling select dishes from the opening menu at the opening prices: Shrimp sauteed in white wine over spinach for $12.50, spaghetti carbonara for two for $8.95, veal in garlic wine sauce for $11.95. There's one catch: reservations are a must. Walk-ins have to order from the usual menu and pay 2016 prices.
The deal will be offered Mondays at dinner and Tuesdays at lunch and dinner.
(Here's a great backgrounder on La Famiglia.)