January 03, 2024
Provided Image/Mike Parsell
Pizza Richmond will open in the coming weeks on Richmond Street in Port Richmond. Unlike its sister shop, Pizza Shackamaxon in Fishtown, it will offer sit-down dining and online ordering.
Before people can read the hours on Pizza Shackamaxon's website, they are met with a set of rules: "Walk up only. No delivery. No pre-orders. No phone."
The Fishtown pizza joint – located in the original Pizzeria Beddia shop – is a neighborhood favorite for takeout. But in a few weeks, the same team plans to open a sit-down location in Port Richmond just a few doors down from the recently closed Lunar Inn. In hopes of creating an old-fashioned pizza parlor experience, the menu also will include salads and homemade ice cream, owner Mike Parsell said.
Pizza Richmond, at 3136 Richmond St., will serve the same pizza as its sister shop, but there will be a few more topping and specials options. People also will be able to place their orders online and Parsell said he'd like to add a delivery option in the future. But in keeping with Shackamaxon's tradition, there won't be a phone.
"The building we have here is really beautiful, Philadelphia-historic architecture," Parsell said. "I really tried to respect the outside by what we did in the inside and I also want the service and the food and everything to have a nostalgic vibe."
Pizza Richmond will open Jan. 12, Parsell said.
Parsell said his team had been looking for a way to expand Shackamaxon because its small space prevents the business from producing enough pizzas to meet demand. Port Richmond seemed like the perfect fit for a Fishtown developer whose company, A Frame Constructs, owns several other buildings on Richmond Street. The new shop is opening in the space formerly occupied by Romano's Meatballs & Co.
A Frame Constructs, which helped open Martha in Kensington and Sally in Center City, also owns the Richmond Street buildings that house Launderette Records, Tshatshke Jewelry Studio, Creep Records, Big Top Vintage, Corpse Flower Tattoo and a 10-unit apartment complex.
The company also financially backed The Lunar Inn, but the bar and restaurant closed on New Year's Eve, citing losses from the COVID-19 pandemic and a fall break-in. Parsell said his team has been working on Pizza Richmond for about four years, adding that it's strange to be opening a new restaurant as another closes.
"The chances of one place closing within the week of another place opening is blowing my mind a little," Parsell said.
In the early 2000s, Parsell said he frequently rode up and down Richmond Street as a bike messenger. When development in Fishtown took off, Parsell said he immediately thought of all the empty storefronts on Richmond Street as a great place for A Frame to expand.
"I just loved Richmond Street. I always thought it was so charming with beautiful architecture and I loved all the Polish places," Parsell said. "Our development started in Fishtown, but then it got so crazy there and I just thought, let's move on to Richmond Street."
He said he's already got some parties interested in the Lunar Inn space, and that he'd love to bring a Polish restaurant to the street. Of all the buildings A Frame owns on Richmond, though, Parsell said the Pizza Richmond building is particularly beautiful, with a brick facade and the A.S. Smolcyznski sign at the top from its 1906 owners.
"It's just classic Philly," Parsell said. "Why I love the city's architecture is buildings like these."
