Angelo's Needs to Do the Most Philly Thing They Can: Tell Their Driving Customers to Pound Sand
And make even more money doing it!
TL;DR: Angelo's pizza situation perfectly illustrates Philly's transportation dilemma: the problem isn't the business, it's the cars. Instead of Band-Aid solutions like plastic bollards and trash cans, Angelo's should embrace being car-free, incentivize sustainable transportation with pricing, reinvest in the neighborhood, and improve their operational model. This isn't business suicide—it's smart positioning that aligns with urban reality while potentially increasing their authentic appeal and profits. The boldest, most Philly move Angelo's could make is telling driving customers to take SEPTA or stay home.
The Angelo's situation represents a perfect microcosm of Philadelphia's urban transportation dilemma: we have too many people in the same place to keep trying to shoehorn cars (which are, and this is true, very big) in, especially for pizza. In other words, if you want to get your pizza in a car, hit up a California Pizza Kitchen or start a food truck yourself.
After reading about the contentious community meeting, it's clear we're treating symptoms rather than addressing the root cause. While 75 frustrated Bella Vista residents talked plastic bollards and trash cans with Angelo's lawyers, the fundamental issue went unaddressed: a business model that encourages people to drive to a dense urban neighborhood never designed for cars.
The Meeting That Missed the Point
Reading the Inquirer's coverage of the meeting, I was struck by how everyone seems to be dancing around the core issue. "You cannot fix that location," neighbor Joel Palmer correctly observed. "You have to come to Jesus and understand that you can't stay there. You've got to go."
But this framing misses something crucial: Angelo's isn't the problem. The cars are.
One resident cut straight to the heart of it: "When you look at a lot of the other popular restaurants in the area — Saloon, John's Water Ice, Kalaya when it was here, Mawn, Sarcone's when it was here, every restaurant in the Italian Market — none of those bring people smoking weed in front of children, drinking on the streets in the middle of the day, urinating in people's planters or wherever they want, and giant heaps of trash all over the place."
Why? Honestly, because they’ve usurped urban space for cars—which also sucks! Angelo’s is in the unenviable position of having the same success as other local businesses that attract suburbanites—they just don’t have the luxury of parking subsidized by the city right next door.
Yes, parking lots still make the city worse, perhaps especially when they accommodate suburbanites driving in. Don’t @ me, bro.
Folks making special trips in their F-150s, as attorney Peter Kelsen himself acknowledged, are the problem: "If the community has an idea of how we can prevent an F-150 coming from Bucks County to buy pizza or cheesesteaks, I'd love to hear it."
Well, Peter, I've got some ideas.
Great Pie! Bad Toppings
Let's look at what's being proposed:
1. Plastic bollards to daylight intersections - Great start! But make them un-drive-over-able and make them default practice across the city. Even with that, still a band-aid that doesn't address the volume of cars or customer behavior
2. More trash cans - Again, a perennial problem across the city. Do this everywhere, but it doesn’t fix the Angelo’s situation.
3. A potential loading zone - Accommodating more vehicles rather than reducing them
4. A social media campaign asking customers to behave - As if an Instagram post will magically instill urban etiquette in suburban visitors
5. A line monitor - Cool, yeah, but if you’ve ever been to a fast-casual restaurant with the loud angry buzzers, you know suburban customers want to be RIGHT THERE, should technology fail them once more.
Each of these proposals attempts to mitigate damage while preserving the fundamental problem: too many people bringing their cars to a dense urban neighborhood that cannot physically accommodate them.
Let me say that again: Bella Vista can accommodate Angelo’s customers. It can’t accommodate their cars.
To be totally clear, BV needs to make changes on that block to turn it into a real, people-centric spot with seating (and please, please a bathroom) for all the restaurants on the block. Scheduled commercial delivery windows, parklets, and no thru traffic. Think Italian Market (duh) with even fewer cars.
An Alternate Vision: The Car-Free Angelo's
Instead of these half-measures, Angelo's has an opportunity to pioneer a truly Philadelphia solution that would transform their relationship with the neighborhood while potentially increasing their business:
1. Embrace a Car-Free Brand Identity
Angelo's should plainly state what neighborhood residents already know: this location is not suitable for car traffic. Make it part of their authentic brand story: "We're a neighborhood joint in a neighborhood that wasn't built for cars."
Rather than apologetically trying to accommodate drivers, lean into being exclusively for locals and visitors who respect the urban fabric enough to arrive without a vehicle.
Imagine signs declaring: "NO PARKING • NO EXCEPTIONS • TAKE SEPTA OR STAY HOME." It's blunt, it's direct, it's Philly.
2. Create Financial Incentives for Sustainable Transportation
Implement a $2-3 surcharge on all orders, with a discount back to normal price for customers who can show:
- A SEPTA Key card
- A local ID with an address within walking distance
- Proof they arrived by bike (helmet) or on foot (..sweat?)
This isn't about punishing drivers—it's about pricing in the externalities they impose on the neighborhood. The people clogging streets, idling engines, and treating stoops as dining rooms are imposing real costs on residents. Those costs should be reflected in the price of doing business that way.
3. Reinvest in the Community That Bears the Burden
Take those surcharge funds and direct them back to the Bella Vista Neighbors Association or community initiatives. As one resident noted at the meeting, neighbors are effectively "underwriting the business" by tolerating its externalities. This would begin to balance the scales.
Imagine if Angelo's contributed directly to neighborhood improvements, funding parklets, better lighting, or streetscape enhancements that benefit everyone? It transforms them from neighborhood nuisance to community asset.
4. Rethink the Operational Model
Beyond discouraging driving, Angelo's must address the core operational issues:
- Create a waiting area: Partner with nearby businesses like 12 Steps Down (whose owner spoke up at the meeting about already serving as "Angelo's living room") to formalize waiting arrangements. And for the love of god and all that is holy—just turn at least one godforsaken parking spot into a seating area. Please.
- Consider advance ordering windows: Assign pickup times to reduce the perpetual line of people milling about.
- Expand delivery options: If suburbanites want Angelo's pizza without the “hassle” of SEPTA, tell them to go to another location or order delivery.
They don’t HAVE to come to the South Philly location. Calling all the driving in, illegally parking, eating off your car, and tossing your trash in the kids’ playground “the South Philly experience” is painfully ironic when the only people experiencing South Philly like that are suburbanites.
Driving into the most walkable neighborhood in the most walkable city in the states isn’t authentic, it’s absurd.
This Isn't Business Suicide—It's Smart Positioning
DiGiampietro said it himself: "We are not trying to do a nightclub atmosphere there. I cringe at them lines."
If he truly cringes at those lines, he has the power to transform them. Taking a stand against driving to his South Philly location wouldn't hurt business—it would reorient it toward a more sustainable, community-centered model while paradoxically increasing its authentic appeal.
The resulting media coverage would be worth millions in free publicity. "Angelo's Tells Cars to Pound Sand" is exactly the kind of headline that would generate social media buzz while repositioning the business as one with principles and neighborhood loyalty.
The Broader Urban Lesson
The Angelo's situation perfectly illustrates what I've been writing about: you can't solve urban mobility problems by accommodating more cars. The spatial math simply doesn't work.
When neighbor Eileen Plato said, "You want the lines, you want the hype. That's what it's about," she identified a key insight: the business model is fundamentally incompatible with the physical constraints of the neighborhood.
But rather than concluding that Angelo's must leave, I'd argue they must transform—evolving from a business that tolerates and even encourages car culture to one that explicitly rejects it in favor of something more aligned with urban reality.
A Challenge to Danny DiGiampietro
Danny, if you're reading this: you have an opportunity to do something truly revolutionary. You already make some of the best pizza and cheesesteaks in Philly. Now you can pioneer a new model of urban business that respects its surroundings while still thriving.
Tell your driving customers to stay home or take SEPTA. Refocus on serving the community that hosts you. Create a model that other urban businesses can follow.
You claim to care about the neighborhood, that you "cringe at them lines." Prove it by making the bold move that everyone at that community meeting was dancing around: acknowledge that cars are the problem, and be the first to say no to them.
Double down on the city's walkable, transit-accessible character and tell the driving public exactly where they can go instead. That would be the most authentically Philly thing you could possibly do. And I bet you'd sell even more pizza doing it.