West Philly’s favorite pizza shop is back

After a botched sale and a three-month pause, the pizza oven is fired up again at 4814 Spruce St. in West Philadelphia.

Pizza Plus West reopened earlier this month — in the same location and under its original owners — bringing pizzaiolo Daniel Gutter’s experimental pies back to a neighborhood that some say lacks good delivery pizza.

Gutter, known as @pizza_gutt on Instagram, and business partner Alex Carbonell opened Pizza Plus West in 2021 as the fourth shop in their growing restaurant empire, which includes Circles and Squares in Kensington, the Northern Liberties gastropub Bourbon & Branch, and the original Pizza Plus at 1846 S. 12th St. in South Philly.

Pizza Plus started as a way for Gutter to branch out from his signature Detroit-style squares into other realms: 16-inch New York-style pies and pan pizzas, plus delivery staples like wings and cheesesteaks.

The partners sold Pizza Plus West in April 2026 to focus on other projects that demanded their full attention, Carbonell said. He and Gutter are working on transforming the long-closed Mount Airy dive bar the Mermaid into a three-story restaurant set to open next spring. They also recently rebranded Bourbon & Branch as a Southern restaurant, now helmed by former Middle Child Clubhouse sous chef Brooke Allen.

“We were at the top of our game at Pizza Plus West, doing better than ever,” Carbonell said. “But we also felt like we were being torn in too many different directions.”

To take something off their plate, Carbonell and Gutter made arrangements to sell Pizza Plus West to a new owner who hoped to gradually turn the shop into a Guyanese fried chicken joint that also sells pizza. They started a handoff in April, but by July, the shop was doing less than half its usual sales, Carbonell said.

Soon after, he said, the new owner ghosted Carbonell and Gutter and defaulted on a two-year bridge loan from them negotiated as part of the sale. The shop closed that same month.

“It was very depressing,” said Carbonell, declining to name the other owner. “Neither of us really wanted to sell [Pizza Plus West]. We just felt like we didn’t have any other choice at moment.”

(The Inquirer was unable to identify Pizza Plus West’s previous owner via public records to reach out for comment.)

After a month of deliberation, Gutter and Carbonell reclaimed the business, announcing via Instagram that Pizza Plus West was reopening in early October. Their first day back was Oct. 12.

“It was so great to have old faces coming back in,” Carbonell said. “That first day, people were just walking by with their dogs and fist-bumping, just so excited to have us back.”

The new, old Pizza Plus West is not without changes.

Carbonell and Gutter brought on Saul Pineda and Pedro Vasquez as new working partners to the Spruce Street shop in September, where they will be in charge of manning the pizza ovens. Both of them have worked with Carbonell for more than a decade at It’s Nutts, the beloved roadside family restaurant in Titusville, N.J., that Carbonell has owned since 2005.

With the new partners comes one addition: Its Nutts’ famous fried chicken, sold by the piece. The chicken soaks in a top-secret brine for 24 hours before getting dredged and fried.

Carbonell estimates Its Nutts goes through 1,000 pounds of chicken a week. Pizza Plus West will be a success if it does a fraction of that, he said.

The shop is also doing away with pan pizzas, which Carbonell said are “too labor-intensive” to maintain since they require a dedicated baker just to work on the focaccia crust. They have been swapped out for 12-inchpersonal-size New York pizzas, which Carbonell said are already selling well.

Otherwise, the menu is the same. Pizza Plus West’s calling card remains its 16-inch pizzas. They range from classic red, white and vodka-sauced pies to less conventional offerings such as the General Tso’s chicken and broccoli to the chicken Caesar — literally a Caesar salad with fried chicken spread on top of a white pie.

Cheesesteaks and burgers (and their vegan counterparts) are also available, as are Pizza Plus’ gut-busting “snack boxes” — a single pizza box stuffed with a personal pie, two cheeseburgers, wings, fries, and onion rings.

Pizza Plus West, 4814 Spruce St., 215-207-0391, pizzaplusphilly.com. Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday to Saturday. Closed Tuesday.