Mercer Cafe, with Tacconelli's, opening at Navy Yard
Port Richmond's Mercer Cafe has signed a lease to open a restaurant at 15th Street and Kitty Hawk Avenue, next to the Dinic's location. (It's Building 623, if you're an old salt.)
Workers at the Navy Yard are getting a nifty perk next spring:
Tacconelli's pizza, hot out of the oven.
Port Richmond's Mercer Cafe has signed a lease to open a restaurant at 15th Street and Kitty Hawk Avenue, next to the Dinic's location. (It's Building 623, if you're an old salt.)
Tom and Dina Woltjen will be dipping into Dina's family's business for this location, which Otto Architects is remaking from its past as a bank.
Dina, you see, is a Tacconelli, of the Port Richmond pizza destination.
Dina's brother Vincent, who owns the separately operated Tacconelli's location in Maple Shade, is working with the Woltjens and with their children Liza Bello and Tom Woltjen Jr..
The brick-oven pizza will be available for eat-in, takeout and delivery, in addition to Mercer's breakfast and lunch fare. There also will be a grab-and-go market.
Mercer would complement Lo Spiedo, which Marc Vetri and his crew just opened at the Navy Yard's main gate.
In a statement, landlord PIDC said Otto would create a modern façade clad in weathered metals and woods. Large windows and doors will increase lighting throughout the interior, allowing the dining room to open to the outdoors. A main focal point of the design is the featured pizza ovens in the rear of the market area. The dining room provides open seating and a diner counter, all beneath a ceiling of exposed joists.
The project also is a homecoming for Tom Woltjen Sr., who started in 1980 as a sheet metal mechanic at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. In 1998, he and his brother Robert converted a rowhouse at Westmoreland and Mercer Streets into Mercer Cafe.