Hordes of students are coming back to party during New Student Orientation, and Allegro Pizza's new owner wants his restaurant ready for them.
"I want it set up like my other store!" owner Dimitrios Dimopoulos yelled into his cell phone Monday, negotiating with the phone company.
The pizza place at 40th and Walnut streets has been closed for construction for months. The counter is now marble, the booths replaced with tables and chairs.
And in the meantime, Dimopoulos has managed to make it feel almost exactly like his other 40th Street store, Greek Lady.
For this local business that got its start as a campus food truck, it's all about the details - and its newest establishment is no exception.
The new management is looking beyond cheap 40s. Dimopoulos plans to stock an extensive selection of "hard-to-get" foreign beers and 20 more kinds of gourmet pizza.
While the beer prices are not yet available, a large cheese pizza will still cost $9.95.
"I just hope these guys can do the same job I did," said former Allegro's owner Joseph Scarpa of his restaurant's sale. "The Greek Lady people, they gave me the least friction."
Scarpa owned the campus institution for "25 years, baby." He "hated" to sell it this summer, but he "had to do it" because his son wasn't interested in taking over the family business.
But the new owners are looking to keep the spirit of Allegro's the same.
It will still be open until 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, and Dimopoulos anticipates late-night o has managed restaurants around Philadelphia. "The best customers I ever had."
Dimopoulos is confident Allegro's will be open Friday.
But as students started pouring in to campus earlier this week, its doors were still closed. And many upperclassmen wonder: How can freshmen go to NSO parties without Allegro's pizza waiting on the trek back to their dorms?
"By the end of NSO [last year], I was figuring out that that was one of the hangout spots," said College sophomore Alec Smith, who will be living nearby in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house this year.
"It's definitely one of the spots I cruise back to on the way back to the house after a night out," he added. "That was one of the things I was looking forward to [during NSO this year], to take in the experience again. Part of me will feel sad."
While Smith said Allegro's "run-down" look gave it character, Dimopoulos said it was time for some sprucing up.
But the promise of more pizza and the new beer selections, Smith said, quickly eliminated any pangs of nostalgia for his first NSO.
With the success Greek Lady has seen since it opened its 40th Street doors in 2004, the restaurant's budding dynasty may be expanding even further.
Dimopoulos said that after he gets the new Allegro's off the ground, he is starting to look at Center City locations for another Greek Lady branch.
We "work as a team. . Everything [is] made fresh to order," he said. "It feels good."
