Palizzi chef-owner Joey Baldino reopens an old-school South Philly joint with a seafood menu

The neon sign with two orange bombs glows in the night over the South Philadelphia corner bar. Step inside, and the Bomb Bomb is in full swing: customers chatting and hugging beneath a silent TV playing the Monday night game, icy drinks sloshing in coupes, and plates of sauced-up ribs hitting the bar top. The walls are crammed with old-time Phillies, Sixers, and Eagles memorabilia beneath a whirring ceiling fan.

But wait. Where did that light-up Miller High Life sign over the bar come from? And the two slushie machines for frozen cocktails? And why isn’t Deb leading a chorus of “That’s Amore”?

Deb Barbato is retired now. She and her husband, Frank — whose dad bought the Bomb Bomb in 1951, ushering in decades of red-gravy and seafood classics — sold it earlier this year.

The buyer, chef Joey Baldino, set out to keep it as it was. Blow up the Bomb Bomb? More like a glow-up. Baldino’s minor changes included the beer sign, a coat of paint, new kitchen equipment, and a subtle name change from Bomb Bomb Bar-B-Q Grill to Bomb Bomb Bar & Grill. It reopened Thursday at 1026 Wolf St.

» READ MORE: The landmark Bomb Bomb closes in South Philly

Baldino — who owns the acclaimed South Jersey BYOB Zeppoli (featured in The Inquirer’s inaugural edition of The 76) as well as South Philadelphia’s retro Palizzi Social Club — is leaning into the seafood, which was Bomb Bomb’s big thing.

The snug front room, which can handle 15 people max, functions as a sports bar with casual dishes such as slow-cooked porchetta sandwiches, fried calamari and peppers, mussels fra diavolo, a shrimp cocktail with tiger prawns the size of a baby’s fist, and barbecue spare ribs, which Frank introduced in the 1990s to make the menu stand out in the crowd.

There’s a cool drink list from Palizzi general manager Jorgen Eriksen, including a pepperoncini martini, Bloody Mary, and the slushies: Sgroppino (limoncello, prosecco, and lemon) and “Roman Coke” (amaro and Coca-Cola).

The 30-seat dining room is booked through Resy and accessed through the bar’s old “ladies entrance” on Warnock Street. Baldino gave that an Italian nautical theme, down to the red-and-white checkered tablecloths, a mounted marlin, and hand-painted fish plates from Italy on the walls.

The menu, overseen by chef de cuisine Max Hachey, who worked for Baldino at Zeppoli and was last at Friday Saturday Sunday, is fixed-price ($65 per person). The offering is South Philly’s Greatest Seafood Hits: clams white, clams casino, crab cake, lobster Francese, mussels fra diavolo, stuffed calamari, steamed lobster, plus sides. Lobster bibs and wet naps for everybody.

This is all built for sharing. “Each person will get to pick two or three items and we’re going to request that everybody orders a different dish,” Baldino said. “It’ll literally be like eating a seven-fish dinner any time of the year.”

A vanilla sundae is the lone dessert.

Baldino emphasized that the kitchen is not equipped to accommodate seafood allergies. Vegetarian options are limited to fried mozzarella in carrozza on the bar menu.

Baldino hopes it will be booked most of the time. “There will be nights that inevitably are going to be slow, but I prefer reservations because it also makes it easier for us to prepare the night before,” he said. “But walk-ins are always welcome if we can fit them in.”

Baldino, whose first restaurant was Zeppoli, considers himself a steward of old-time South Philly. Growing up at 12th and Reed, he inherited Palizzi — a social club serving Italian immigrants in the early 20th century — from his uncle. Baldino largely kept the club’s look and feel when he reopened it in 2017 for a new crop of members.

As a kid, Baldino went to the Bomb Bomb with his parents for Deb’s stuffed calamari. “When I was growing up, bars like that always had seafood in the back — places like South Philly Bar & Grill and Strolli’s,” Baldino said. “Slowly, they all started disappearing. Bomb Bomb was like that. When I first walked in, when Frank was showing me the building, there was this little sign that he had on a little chalkboard. It said ‘seafood fest,’ and it just hit me.”

He said he bought the place out of a sense of duty.

The Bomb Bomb enjoys a classic backstory. After Prohibition ended in 1933, the bar business was exploding, you might say. In February 1936, a chef named Dominick LePore left his job at another South Philadelphia bar and took a job at what is now the Bomb Bomb, then known as Bob’s Taproom.

His former boss ordered him to return. When LePore refused, the new bar was firebombed in the middle of the night, causing no injuries but shattering windows and “rocking houses to their foundations,” as The Inquirer reported in a front-page article on Feb. 17, 1936.

When LePore turned him down again, a second bomb went off nearly two months later. This time, the story goes, LePore got the message and returned to his old job.

Bob’s Taproom became known around the neighborhood as the “Boom Boom.” By the time Frank Barbato Sr. bought the place, 15 years after the explosions, it was the “Bomb Bomb.”

Bomb Bomb Bar, 1026 Wolf St., Philadelphia; bombbombbar.com. Hours: 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday to Monday. Food service ends at midnight in the bar, while the last seating in the back room is 9:15 p.m. On weekends, the bar opens at noon for game days. Note: Baldino reminds that nearby parking can be scarce and recommends that nonlocals consider a rideshare or taxi.