Nothing about this Winn-Dixie anchored plaza says osso bucco and risotto. Not the Happy Tobacco shop, not JJ Nails, not the MetroPCS store outlined in neon and LED lights. When I pulled into the Foxmoor Shopping Center on Bayshore Road in North Fort Myers I thought maybe I’d find a Subway (it’s at the west end) or a liquor store (it’s at the east end), not a cozy Italian restaurant run by a lifelong Sicilian pizza maker and a family of Philadelphian restaurateurs.

And yet, here is Morrone’s. Morrone’s opened in October smack dab in the middle of this strip mall, in a thumbprint of a space that formerly housed a Chinese takeout shop. Its chef is Salvatore Musso, founder of the old Sal Musso’s New York Pizza in Cape Coral. Its owners are Michael and Margaret Morrone, Philly transplants who owned restaurants in the northeast part of the city and who insist on Amoroso’s rolls and thin-sliced rib eye for Morrone’s cheesesteaks.