Bordered by Broad and Sixth streets, Tasker and Washington, the neighborhood of Passyunk Square is, by turns, old fashioned and trendy. Once upon a time, East Passyunk Avenue, which bisects the neighborhood diagonally, felt a lot like a small-town main street. It was a place where mom and pop businesses — selling everything from headstones to school uniforms — catered to mostly Italian-American neighbors.

Depending on who you ask, Passyunk might mean “land below the hills” or “a place of sleep” in the Native American Lenape language. And by the 1980s, Passyunk Square itself had begun to feel a little sleepy, its shops and restaurants, many of which had been in families for generations, seemingly stuck in a mid-century time warp.