Jessica Anasti, part of Pizzata Pizzeria family, dies at 39
Ms. Anasti was hailed as a “guiding light” behind much of the restaurant’s distinctive vibe.
Jessica Anasti, 39, of Fishtown, a retail executive and a member of one of the families behind Pizzata Pizzeria, died July 25, her husband, Vince Gallagher, said. Her cause of death was not immediately available.
Gallagher called Ms. Anasti a “guiding light” responsible for the atmosphere and spirit at the pizzeria’s two locations. “Jess,” as friends knew her, “literally made everything from the fonts to the color schemes,” he said.
Born April 26, 1986, to Jim and Joan Anasti in Baltimore, Ms. Anasti and her family lived in Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, where she graduated from Emmaus High School in 2004.
Ms. Anasti earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Villanova University — where she met Gallagher — in 2008. She spent two years as an associate merchandiser in American Eagle Outfitters’ Pittsburgh office before journeying east in 2010 to help manage its branding and supply partnerships in Kuwait.
Gallagher, who accompanied Ms. Anasti to Kuwait and on a summer 2011 trip to Russia, said she had a knack for connecting with others across cultural lines.
“Wherever she went, people just sensed she had this huge international appeal,” Gallagher said. “They felt like they could talk to her.”
She was a generous and supportive friend as well, Gallagher said. Ms. Anasti occasionally delivered food to the home of a local artist who had become a family friend, he said, and when several of his works went on display in Texas, Anasti made the 18-hour day trip to check it out.
Ms. Anasti’s travels also deeply informed her personal life. Samantha Magpi, the Delaware Valley midwife who delivered the couple’s youngest child, said she opted for a natural birth for her daughter, Poppy.
“It just felt like a more intimate connection to what her needs were,” Magpi said. “For someone like that to no longer be on this earth is hard to wrap your head around.”
Ms. Anasti returned stateside in late 2011 and spent three years helping merchandise accessories for Gap. She next took a job curating storefronts and inventory for Williams Sonoma in the San Francisco Bay Area.
While they were in San Francisco, Gallagher asked for her hand in marriage by mailing Jim Anasti, a noted bread connoisseur, a sourdough loaf with a note inside asking for a phone call.
The couple was married in Ostuni, Italy in 2019 — with the elder Anasti’s blessing.
The new family moved to Philadelphia that summer; Ms. Anasti began working on merchandising for URBN’s Anthropologie brand from June 2019 and became a familiar face to many of the company’s leaders.
“Jess was truly one of a kind; her love for life was contagious, and her presence lit up every room,” Margaret Hayne, copresident and chief creative officer of Anthropologie’s parent company URBN, said in a statement. “She will be missed beyond words, but her spirit will live on in the stories we share and the friendships she nurtured.”
Ms. Anasti is survived by her husband; her parents; her children, Paxton and Poppy; and two brothers.
Family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues — including, Gallagher said, hundreds of employees from URBN — memorialized Ms. Anasti at a July 30 gathering at McElvarr Funeral Home in Fishtown.
“The amount of people, from all around, that she touched, it’s crazy,” Gallagher said.