A Philly restaurant regular’s devotion inspired his son to build a $1,500 Lego replica

To be loved is to be known — or, better yet, to inspire a 3,233-piece custom Lego set.

Gene Gualtieri is devoted to Friday Saturday Sunday. Almost every Friday since 2022, the Filter Square resident has lined up at 4:30 p.m. to score the same seat at the first-floor bar of Chad and Hanna Williams’ acclaimed Rittenhouse Square restaurant, where he is known to house a full roast chicken — bones and all — and order off-menu sherry martinis from bartender Paul MacDonald. It’s a ritual that has inspired a tattoo on Gualtieri’s bicep: “B9,” code for bar seat no. 9.

“It’s my seat,” said Gualtieri, 57, an engineer. “This feeling of hospitality and being welcomed [at the bar] ... it’s a social hub for me.”

So when Gualtieri’s 21-year-old son, Leo, needed a Christmas present for his father, everyone from his aunt Claire to his older brother Sam had the same idea. What if, Leo recounts them wondering, there was a way to shrink Friday Saturday Sunday so it fits in your house?

The resulting gift — a 1½-foot-tall replica of Friday Saturday Sunday’s facade and its ground-level Lovers Bar, constructed out of more than 3,200 Legos — doesn’t skimp on the details. Leo recreated everything, down to the discolored patches of sidewalk out front.

Friday Saturday Sunday (Leo’s version) comes with Lego figurines of the Williamses, bartender MacDonald, and his father that can be posed to sit in one of the bar’s 13 tiger-print chairs. There’s a petite version of the Fibonacci carousel MacDonald uses to perfect his mixology, plus miniatures of the bar’s gargoyle- and raven-shaped pour spouts, mermaid caryatids, and towering citrus bowls. In honor of restaurant’s Michelin star, Leo even included a tiny and perfectly rotund Michelin Man.

Leo stored the pieces in a repurposed Seinfeld Lego set box that he wrapped in a rendering of the finished design. When Gualtieri opened it on Christmas morning, he cried. The finished version inspired a similar response from others after Gualtieri and the restaurant posted photos on Instagram at the end of January.

“This is so beautiful I wanna cry,” commented one person. “Top 10 most impressive things I have ever seen,” wrote another.

Leo’s dad concurs. “I was pretty blown away,” Gualtierri said. “At first glance, it looks like a Lego set you’d get a store.”

Recreating Friday Saturday Sunday was a labor of love for Leo, a self-described former Lego kid currently finishing up his senior year at Emerson College as a comedy major. As a child, Leo was fixated on building an ever-expanding amusement park out of the plastic blocks alongside his dad. It was an obsession that served him well this holiday season.

To reconstruct the restaurant, Leo first had to create a rendering of the bar and its exterior in Brick Link, Minecraft-esque software that lets users build and source their own custom Lego sets. Leo said he spent roughly 100 hours translating all the tiny details into Lego form, working first off images of the facade from Google. When those weren’t precise enough, he said, Leo begged MacDonald to send him photos of all the minutiae, from the glassware to close-ups of the light fixtures.

“It was addicting ... I would work on it in class,” said Leo while on Zoom with his father, who scoffed at the admission. “Time would pass much faster because I was locked in.”

Once the rendering was complete, Leo and his mom spent $1,500 on the Lego pieces, sourced from 13 different Lego resellers across Japan, Spain, and the Netherlands. To find a realistic version of Chad Williams’ beard and apron, Leo had to commission custom blocks from an Etsy seller.

After Christmas, Leo spent the remainder of his winter break from college building mini Friday Saturday Sunday, developing calluses from clicking the bricks into place. Dad, Leo said, wasn’t much help.

“He tried to build some chairs,” Leo said of his father. “I don’t think he’s cut out for it.” (Gualtieri agreed. Leo, he admitted, gets his dexterity from his mother.)

Every time he looks at the replica, Gualtieri said he discovers new details, like how the bottles mimic the exact ones behind MacDonald’s bar. Hanna Williams, Friday Saturday Sunday’s co-owner, felt the same when Gualtieri sent her progress updates on the buildout.

“I think [Leo] might know every inch of the bar better than me,” she said. Williams especially loves her Lego dopplegangër: “A high bun, bangs, and tattoos? That’s so me.”

Williams is used to her restaurant being the recipient of the highest order of affection. In the decade since she and her husband revamped Friday Saturday Sunday from a classic fine-dining restaurant with excellent mushroom soup into cozy bar for walk-ins with a top-floor tasting menu that melds Caribbean, Asian, and soul food influences, the restaurant has earned a Michelin Star, a James Beard Award, and a spot on the World’s 50 Best North American restaurants. Just last week, Friday Saturday Sunday won an award for excellence in hospitality from the Tasties, Philly’s homegrown culinary honors.

And yet, Williams said, the Lego replica represents an extra-special type of achievement.

“It’s completely overwhelming,” she said. “But at the same time, there’s nothing that could make you feel better.”