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Gennaro's Tomato Pie will move to East Passyunk, after all

The South Philadelphia thin-crust specialist will join its thicker-crust counterpart across from the Singing Fountain.

Gennaro's Tomato Pie will move after all to Passyunk Square, where in early November it will replace Grace & Pat's.

Mike Giammarino was running out of room last year at Gennaro's, on Jackson Street near South Philadelphia High, when the spot that housed a trattoria called Da Vinci, across from the Singing Fountain at 1533 S. 11th St., became available.

Giammarino decided to move Gennaro's there, but his customers complained, so he relented. Gennaro's remained at 1429 Jackson St., and Giammarino opened a new concept - Grace & Pat's - on 11th Street in April 2015.

Both restaurants are pizza specialists. Gennaro's pizzas are sublimely thin-crusted, while Grace & Pat's offers what Giammarino calls "grandma-style" pizza: rectangular, thicker than Neapolitan, not as thick as Sicilian. It's what his grandmother, Grazia Carbone, made in Brooklyn.

Giammarino is an old hand at pizza, as he shuttles between New York - where he owns the century-old Lombardi's in Manhattan - and South Philadelphia. Giammarino operated a branch of Lombardi's when it was on 18th Street south of Sansom in Rittenhouse, which was bulldozed a decade ago to make way for 10 Rittenhouse.

He said Gennaro's will offer both styles of pizza, with the inclusion of a few pasta dishes. Eventually, the upstairs dining room will be made into a Grace & Pat's room.

The Jackson Street location will be used as office space.

Meanwhile, the space next door to Grace & Pat's on 11th Street is being outfitted as a Filipino restaurant called Perla.