Tacconelli's traces back to 1918, when Giovanni Tacconelli arrived in Philadelphia from Italy and built a 20-by-20-foot brick oven to bake bread. When World War II pulled his sons into military service, the bread business stalled, and in 1946 he turned that same oven toward tomato pies — fresh dough, a light hand with cheese, and a heavy one with sauce, the recipe his mother had taught him back in Italy.
The oven has stayed at the center of the operation ever since, surviving a 1992 rebuild that was supposed to take three months and stretched to seven. The Tacconelli family, now in its fifth generation, still runs the kitchen as a one-man, one-oven operation, with every pie made fresh to order.
Regulars have built a following around the white pizza and garlic pies in particular, and around the old-school pace of the place itself — a North Philadelphia fixture where the ritual of getting the pie is as much a part of the experience as the pie.
The oven has stayed at the center of the operation ever since, surviving a 1992 rebuild that was supposed to take three months and stretched to seven. The Tacconelli family, now in its fifth generation, still runs the kitchen as a one-man, one-oven operation, with every pie made fresh to order.
Regulars have built a following around the white pizza and garlic pies in particular, and around the old-school pace of the place itself — a North Philadelphia fixture where the ritual of getting the pie is as much a part of the experience as the pie.