Celebs love South Philly’s latest cheesesteak and pizza shop. It hasn’t even opened yet.

Backyard Cravings began as a pandemic pizza-making hobby on a South Philadelphia patio. It soon became a social media sensation, drawing customers, food influencers, and celebrities to a rowhouse on 13th Street.

Now, Sal Burgese is taking Backyard out of the backyard.

Burgese, 34, plans to open his brick-and-mortar storefront Saturday at 1429 Wolf St., trading the outdoor pizza oven, the kitchen oven that baked four rolls at a time, and the 2 a.m. bread-making sessions for commercial equipment capable of producing hundreds of cheesesteaks and pizzas a day in a storefront.

Thursdays and Fridays will be pizza days, Saturdays and Sundays for cheesesteaks — noon to 7 p.m., or until sold out — first come, first served, no call-ins, no online ordering, cash only, takeout only.

It’s a leap Burgese could hardly have imagined in 2020. Then a Philadelphia court officer with time on his hands during the pandemic, he joined countless homebound Americans who took up baking. He began experimenting with bread and pizza, teaching himself through books and YouTube videos.

He bought a small Gozney oven and began cranking out rolls and pizza in the apartment he shared with his wife, Gianna, at 10th and Moore Streets — “not to sell, just because I was so nervous about ordering out and touching things,” he said. When the couple moved to a house on 13th Street between Ritner and Porter, Burgese started making them in his backyard, just to give away.

“I was probably making 200 pizzas a week,” he said. “We were eating pizza seven days a week.”

One night, craving a cheesesteak, he used one of his homemade rolls to make a sandwich and found it “phenomenal.” He began giving rolls and sandwiches to neighbors. One posted about it on Facebook, and strangers and influencers started to ask to buy food.

At first, Burgese was baffled.

“I’m not selling food,” he recalled telling them.

Eventually, he reconsidered.

He came up with the name Backyard Cravings while sitting — where else? — in his backyard.

The unlikely setting became part of the attraction: a guy making pizzas and cheesesteaks on homemade rolls behind a Lower Moyamensing rowhouse.

And so it began online. He and customers posted photos and videos, influencers visited, followed by more curious customers. “I think people were attracted to the idea of this guy selling food out of his backyard,” Burgese said.

The business grew into a weekend operation that went well beyond a hobby.

The Burgeses worked their regular jobs Monday through Friday — Gianna handles patient admissions at Penn Medicine — then devoted weekends to filling advance orders. Customers were assigned pickup times, allowing the couple to manage a growing business without turning their block into a waiting area.

Eventually, Burgese — still working full time —was producing 225 to 250 cheesesteaks a day, roughly 500 per weekend.

Making enough bread was an ordeal.

They needed about 100 rolls a day, but their electric oven held only four at a time. They rose at 2 or 3 a.m. to bake, using Gianna’s mother’s oven across the street when theirs couldn’t keep up. Baking finished around 1 p.m., just before pickups began between 2 and 7.

Pizza production was equally improvised. Burgese bought a commercial double-deck Baker’s Pride oven, had an electrician neighbor wire it up, and installed it beneath a tent. They baked through rain and snow. (He plans to keep the oven for off-site catering jobs, though moving the monster requires three people and access to a 220-volt electrical connection.)

There was also a big risk to running an increasingly visible food business behind a residential rowhouse. Burgese said the neighbors were supportive. “I was just going with the flow,” he said. “All it takes is one person, and I knew eventually it was going to end.”

Meanwhile, the operation was attracting famous customers.

Former Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins came for a cheesesteak last year and became a friend, Burgese said. Ken Griffey Jr., Curtis Granderson, Shane Victorino, Phillies broadcaster Tom McCarthy, and singer Teddy Swims also visited.

Having Rollins in his living room was surreal. “I was like, ‘What the hell?’ That’s J-Roll. He was my childhood hero.”

Eventually, the backyard couldn’t accommodate the demand.

About a month ago, Burgese quit his city job after 10 years as a court officer to run Backyard Cravings full time. Gianna plans to keep hers.

The couple, who met at Neumann-Goretti High School, have been together 17 years and married last year. They’re expecting their first child next spring.

Burgese’s rolls are heavily sesame-seeded and have a crisp, well-done exterior and soft middle. He scoops them and leaves the ends intact. They’re overfilled with beef seasoned with salt and pepper, onions, and Cooper Sharp cheese.

No Whiz, no provolone, no list of substitutions. A cheesesteak is $21, including tax.

He chops the meat finer than Angelo’s Pizzeria does, but not as finely as Jim’s on South Street. His Cooper Sharp-only policy dates to the backyard, where he did not have room for multiple cheeses. He likes its creaminess and sees no reason to expand the choices.

The new kitchen also allows Burgese to increase pizza production, which took a back seat because cheesesteaks were easier to produce in quantity.

His 16-inch pies have a light, airy, crisp outer crust; the slices have very little flop. Burgese, a proponent of the cheese-on-the-bottom school of pizza making, is keeping the initial pizza menu short: plain, pepperoni, pizzazz (Cooper Sharp), vodka, and a pie with ricotta, pepperoni, and Mike’s Hot Honey. A plain pizza, including tax, is $22 and pepperoni is $25. Specials are $30.

Burgese hopes to make 150 to 200 pizzas a day and more cheesesteaks than he could manage at home, though he expects the first weeks to be a test.

He’s still tinkering with recipes and agonizing over batches that fall short.

Sometimes he asks Gianna and his assistant and next-door neighbor, Pierce Domenick, to taste something, leaves the room, then returns for a verdict. When they say it’s good, he wants specifics.

Gianna said she recognized early that her husband’s experiments were unlikely to remain casual. “I know that once he puts his mind to something, he doesn’t stop until it’s perfect,” she said. “But it’ll never be perfect in his eyes.”