Spring sprung on Tuesday night in Philadelphia and the Pitruco Pizza Food Truck is set up at 22nd and Brown Sts., per the usual weekly schedule. Business was brisk, with 130-plus pies sold in the neighborhood and another 70 requests turned down because, well, there are only so many resources a food truck has.
Booming.
Not just a lunch truck, Pitruco Food Truck has been a staple of the Fairmount neighborhood since 2011, and the 22nd and Brown Streets corner is “a favorite of ours. We just love it there,” said Jonah Fleigelman, one of the owners of the Food Truck.
“The neighborhood has been phenomenal. I think it’s been our best location, that and Mount Airy on Wednesday nights. Our sales are always high. We’ve had wonderful feedback. We’ve made a lot of friends in that neighborhood. We’ve watched kids grow up and we’ve gotten to know families. There are regulars there who have been with us forever. We’ve had kids dress up as Pitruco on Halloween. That’s been a highlight, to see someone dress up as the truck.”
For those in the know, Pitruco has some of the best pizza in the city offering brick oven pizza specializing in 12-inch Neopolitan-style personal pies that are made from scratch to order.
The menu features a half-dozen options, as well as soft drinks. People who want to order have the options of ordering ahead of time (PitrucoPizza.com) for the Tuesday night delivery from 5 to 8 p.m. in 15-minute increments to – hopefully – ensure oven-to-consumer service with the pies as fresh as can be. Walk-up orders are also taken as are phone orders.
That is, until the dough is out and the pizzas are all gone.
Pitruco has its own in-house shop at 3401 Walnut Street, Franklin’s Table, and also sends the Food Truck out three days each week for pop-up options in Fairmount, Mount Airy/Chestnut Hill and Bella Vista.
“I would like to think that we’re sort of part of the community, as we’ve been on that corner every Tuesday for 10 years now and we think we have 10 more years in us,” Fleigelman said. “The kids who were 3 years old when we started are 12 years old now. They remember us being there for all of their lives. The playground there has been there, it’s been re-done, and there are so many families that are there every Tuesday night. We’ve donated pizzas to some community events that folks have asked us to help out with, we know so many people who live in that neighborhood by name. They let us know when they’re moving. They let us know that they might come back."
“We probably know 75 percent of the people who call in their orders by name because they are such regulars. We feel like we’re part of the community and we’d like to keep it that way. It’s been such a positive relationship.”