After nearly 70 years of serving up thin and crispy square pies in Upper Darby, Pica\u2019s Restaurant is ending dine-in service on Oct. 26, with plans to open a takeout location in Broomall next year.<\/p>\n
This story appears in the Keystone newsletter.\u00a0Subscribe here.<\/a><\/p>\n As Philadelphia-area pizza institutions go, few have the kind of reputation and customer loyalty (Delco\u2019s own Tina Fey is one of those loyal customers<\/a>) that Pica\u2019s Restaurant<\/a> has enjoyed for generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pica\u2019s was founded in West Philadelphia in 1941 by Frank Pica Sr., who moved to Upper Darby in 1956, expanding his pizzeria into a full-service restaurant. His son, Frank Pica Jr., helmed the Upper Darby location for decades, eventually handing the reins over to a third generation of the Pica family.<\/p>\n Back in March, Pica\u2019s announced that after nearly 70 years, its Upper Darby location would be closing<\/a>. Last call there is Sunday, Oct. 26. But it\u2019s hardly the end for Pica\u2019s. You\u2019ll still be able to get takeout in Upper Darby for the time being, and the Pica\u2019s location in West Chester<\/a> isn\u2019t going anywhere. Come early 2026, there will be a new Pica\u2019s location focused on takeout in Broomall at the Lawrence Park Industrial Center.<\/p>\n As a self-described \u201cpizza enthusiast,\u201d I must admit, rather sheepishly, that I had never had Pica\u2019s pizza\u2014despite the rave reviews I\u2019d been getting from my pizza-loving friends in Delco who\u2019d been eating the stuff for decades. With the closure of the flagship location imminent, I visited the Upper Darby spot recently and I can report that Pica\u2019s reputation and loyalty are well-deserved.<\/p>\n Pica\u2019s serves a super-thin crust square pie, with sauce that\u2019s spread right to the edge over a thin layer of cheese and whatever toppings you want (the toppings aren\u2019t listed on the menu, so you have to ask). For reference, think something in between a NEPA grandma pie<\/a> and the sauce-on-top square pies served by another Philly-area institution, Santucci\u2019s<\/a>, but with a thinner crust.<\/p>\n I ordered a pie with roasted red peppers and pepperoni, both of which paired well with the tangy red sauce. The pie had nice char on the top and bottom, and was crispy all the way around. The crust is thin enough that, if you\u2019re not careful and you\u2019re hungry enough, you could house an entire pie by yourself in one sitting. Believe me, I thought about it. But then I thought about how good those last four slices would taste the next day, so I opted for a to-go box. And I was right, it tasted just as good the next afternoon for lunch.<\/p>\n If you can make it by Oct. 26, I highly recommend visiting the Upper Darby Pica\u2019s to experience the old-school, family-style restaurant ambience. All due respect to the more stylish pizzerias that have emerged in the Philly area in recent years, but there\u2019s just something comforting about eating delicious pizza in an upholstered booth.<\/p>\n Also, there\u2019s free refills on soft drinks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly 70 years of serving up thin and crispy square pies in Upper Darby, Pica\u2019s Restaurant is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[9868,77469,69,79699,79700,2918,79701,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-178476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-good-news","tag-hardgate","tag-philadelphia","tag-pizzavania","tag-pizzavania-gate","tag-small-business","tag-softgate","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}