PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A longtime Italian Market spice shop that closed last month is back in business under new management and a new name.
The storefront at 949 S. Ninth St. goes back nearly 90 years.
“This location started in 1933 by the Lacacia family, and they ran it until I guess 40 years ago. Then, I took it over for a while,” said building owner John Gargano.
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About 20 years ago, Gargano rented the store to his cousin, who ran Grassia’s Italian Market Spice Company. Now that she has left, he’s reclaiming the space and renaming the store Gargano’s Italian Market Spice Company, though not much else will change.
“I started when I was a freshman in high school in 1960 working for somebody else,” Gargano recalled, “and the people that owned this spice shop also owned the stands outside, and they couldn’t work them no more. And they said, ‘Johnny, we know you like the business. Why don’t you just take over the stands because we can’t do it no more.’”
Gargano’s shop at Ninth and Carpenter streets still has the glass storefront and original door.
“This is like one of the old original storefronts. This storefront’s been here probably over 100 years,” he said. “If you walk down Ninth Street, not too many of these storefronts [are] left.”
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While he hates to miss the Christmas rush, Gargano’s store is set to open next week in time for New Year’s. He’s working on stocking it now.
“We’re gonna have everything — fruits, spices, nuts, candy, flowers, vinegars, oils. Whatever I can put in here, it’s going to be put in here. I’m not going to leave any spots empty.”
That includes people, too. Gargano wants his storefront to be a friendly hangout.
“All my old friends come around, we drink coffee, we talk about old times. People come, they say, ‘John, you’re still here after all these years? When are you going to retire?’”
He has an answer, of course: “When they take me out in a pine box.”
For more on Gargano’s Italian Market Spice Company, listen to the KYW Newsradio original podcast What’s Cooking on the Audacy app or in the audio player below: