Angelo’s Pizzeria to add Luciana’s Bar & Grill down the street in South Philly

Angelo’s Pizzeria, arguably the hottest ticket in South Philadelphia, is planning a second location.

Owner Danny DiGiampietro is going right down the block to take over Bar One (formerly The Wishing Well) at Ninth and Catharine, where he plans to open Luciana’s Bar & Grill. (As Angelo’s is named after his son, now 8, Luciana is named after his daughter, 9.)

The opening, he said, will be “sooner, rather than later.” The deal had been in the works before COVID-19, he said, but had been put on pause.

Angelo’s, on Ninth just off Fitzwater, has been closed because of a fire just before Christmas. The insurance company just “released” the scene, DiGiampietro said, and repairs and renovations should take at least a few weeks.

Success has come at a price to DiGiampietro. The crushing volume in that tiny shop has forced him and his crew to focus on little more than pizzas and cheesesteaks. Most of the signature sandwiches, built on rolls he bakes in his oven and topped with house-made mozzarella, have been removed from the menu, just for simplicity’s sake. “I run out of everything,” he said. “We can’t make food fast enough.”

DiGiampietro said Angelo’s sandwiches will be available on Luciana’s menu and the bar will become a waiting room for the pizza shop. He’s trying to figure it all out.

“This is all new to me,” DiGiampietro said. He was a bread man before 2014, when he opened Angelo’s in Haddonfield. He closed that location at the end of 2018 in anticipation of opening Angelo’s at 736 S. Ninth St. in early 2019.

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The bar business may be new to him, but the neighborhood is familiar. The block also is home to Sarcone’s Bakery, and his wife, Lauren, is a Sarcone. (Her mother, Linda, is the daughter of Louis Sarcone Sr., whose son and grandson operate the bakery now.)

“I like a challenge,” DiGiampietro said. “A bar has been a little bit of a dream of mine: serve good food and good drinks to the neighborhood. I just want to make people smile.”