Sarcone’s Deli: Great Food On Great Bread Makes Great Sandwiches

By: Jeff Vogel, posted Jul 22, 2009 at 9:00 am

Sarcone's Deli - The Booch

Lou Sarcone Jr., the fourth-generation baker on 9th Street in South Philadelphia, is known among his family simply as Junior. His father, also Lou, and his son, Louis, share more than a name – they share a commitment to keeping a very old business operating the way it did a very long time ago. That is not to say that they haven’t modernized Sarcone’s Bakery – which they have – but they have done so while maintaining their focus on delivering the exact same product, time after time after time. Using premium Pillsbury flour; giving the dough a full 2 hours to rise; baking the bread in the old brick ovens to bring out the flavor. “It’s just like making a gravy,” said Sarcone, “Slow cooked food tastes better.”

So the food you put on that bread better be good.

For Lou’s cousin, Anthony Bucci, food is a passion. A former executive chef at the Wyndam Franklin Plaza hotel and a longtime veteran of the family bakery, he now runs Sarcone’s Deli. The deli is not a typical hoagie and sandwich shop. They serve food that you’d expect to find cooked in a restaurant or your own home, but on that crusty, chewy, flavorful bread. It’s the preparation and ingredients that differentiates them from traditional “lettuce and tomato” hoagie shops. House-prepared roast beef, roast pork, meatballs, chicken cutlets, and eggplant are just some of the restaurant style cooked dishes that find their home on a Sarcone’s roll. Juicy ripe roma tomatoes and bits of prosciutto, sopressata and cappicola that don’t make it onto sandwiches become the starter for the gravy for the hot sandwiches. If you like marinated fresh asparagus and a balsamic drizzle, you can get it on the roast beef sandwich. If you like house-roasted peppers and roasted garlic with fresh herbs, spread it on your veggie sandwich. And if you like DiBruno Bros cheeses, gourmet cured meats and imported parma prosciutto, why not get them on an Old Fashioned Italian sandwich?

Anthony and Lou admit, it always starts with the bread. And at Sarcone’s Bakery, the business is all about tradition. Listen to the previous generation, and do exactly what they do. It’s like whisper down the lane; without all the context and subtext, something can get lost along the way. Five generations of Sarcones have donned the baker’s whites and pledged to keep the bakery exactly the same. As Lou’s grandfather said, “put too much food in your mouth, you can’t chew.” It’s about staying in business. It’s looking at 90 successful years of history and believing that the business could continue for another 90 years. No wholesale, only retail. They’ve seen lean times before and economic booms but the business has remained steady and focused.

A mainstay on the Italian Market if there ever was one, Sarcone’s has witnessed the sell-off of the generations-old businesses a few blocks away; but Lou Sarcone believes that history repeats itself and he welcomes a new generation of business owners coming back to the market. Not just businesses, but Sarcone sees the influx of young professionals, students and young families into South Philadelphia as a good thing for everyone.

Sarcone’s Deli has plans to move into a newly renovated space next to its current location on 9th Street later this summer. (The current space will be put to good use but plans are still being developed.) The bigger growth plan centers around 10-15 new franchise locations in the tri-state area over the next few years. So how does a business so deeply ingrained in its environment extend outside of its location? Sarcone’s has pledged to maintain tight control over the product and training new staff. Keep it geographically limited, keep a handle on quality, and follow the Sarcone’s operator’s manual to the letter: serve up restaurant food on the very best bread.

Already one former franchisee has had the Sarcone’s brand pulled from his shop for cutting corners and cheating the customer. But it was a valuable learning experience for Lou and Anthony, a lesson that will stay with them as they grow their vision beyond 9th Street and into the suburbs.

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