Bomb Bomb Bar Is a Masterclass in South Philly Nostalgia

Mussels fra diavolo at Bomb Bomb Bar / Photography by K.C. Tinari

It was the plastic covers on the tables in the back room at Joey Baldino’s new/old Bomb Bomb Bar that sold me on the beauty and the madness of this project.

He didn’t have to cover those tables, grandma-style, in indestructible plastic to seal away the bright red-and-white checked tablecloths and protect them from spills. But he’s Joey Baldino, the red gravy prince of Collingswood and South 12th Street. This is a deliberate call-back for every kid who grew up with plastic on the “special” couch reserved for guests, who spent birthdays and anniversaries tucked in among parents, grandparents, strange cousins, and drunk uncles at restaurants where the menus came laminated and the bar still served Rusty Nails.

Bomb Bomb has been open (in its current incarnation) since 1951. Know how I know that? It’s on every server’s t-shirt. If the history matters to you, this was a legendary deep South Philly neighborhood joint — a family business that Baldino bought from third-generation owners Frank and Deb Barbato, whose family had been running it for the past 74 years. And yes, it got its name because the location (under different owners, and with a different name) was bombed by a jealous rival. Twice.

Yet, it persisted. Flourished, even. And Baldino, ever the defender of such cultural legacies, saw the value in that and wasn’t about to screw with a good thing. So he kept Bomb Bomb sealed in the amber of its own history, making his adjustments carefully and with a preservationist’s eye for continuity. Now, at the bar, they still serve some of Bomb Bomb’s classics (barbecue ribs and house pilsner in heavy, frosted mugs), while in the back, it’s clams casino, bell-bottomed crabcakes, and a playlist that’s half crooning ’60s pop and half “Mrs. Robinson” covered by the Lemonheads.

Lobster and shells

The dining room (entered through the old-school “ladies entrance”) is small, close-set and rigorously anti-fancy. But the menu is full of exquisitely re-created Italian seafood dishes done with such a lack of fanfare that if you’re not looking for it, you could easily miss just how good they are.

Because, again, this is Baldino. And Max Hachey (most recently ex of Friday Saturday Sunday) is backing him up as chef de cuisine. It’s a culinary pro team playing a sandlot game, so when the shrimp cocktail comes out, it’s three massive shell-on shrimp, perfectly cooked, served on a chilled glass plate smeared with a yin-yang whorl of cocktail sauce and smooth horseradish aioli. The shell pasta comes dressed in a rich tomato cream sauce that’s like an arrabbiata without anger issues, studded with chunks of lobster meat and offered in a crock, family style, for the whole table to argue over.

With almost every plate, there’s a surprise. The tiny pickled cherry tomatoes that come with the crabcakes explode with sweetness. The lobster francese (a whole tail, egg-battered and fried, a little bit soggy but set swimming in a buttery sauternes sauce) wears its shell like a backpack and hides tiny caper leaves soaking in the sauce, which demands to be sponged up with heels of bread. There’s mussels fra diavolo, black tangles of spaghetti in briny squid ink, plates of stewed greens sparked with garlic. And the carbonara — just a side, ordered almost as an afterthought — turns out to be so stunningly silky and deep and rounded that it could’ve been a main course anywhere else. A star. It is, without a doubt, one of the best versions I’ve ever tasted.

Shrimp cocktail at Bomb Bomb Bar

Bomb Bomb’s menu is prix fixe: $62 a head covers multiple courses bolstered by little plates of anchovies in olive oil, bread from New York Bakery, and bowls of a chunky muffuletta tapenade. There are vanilla sundaes for dessert for an extra few bucks and add-ons from anywhere on the menu paid for à la carte. Plates just come as they come, stack up, and are cleared by staff who thread their way through the back dining room, often stopping to sit and talk with neighbors who want to complain about the parking or the weather and compare notes on how their moms used to make calamari.

Vanilla sundae at Bomb Bomb Bar

And that’s the way things go. It is a skillfully executed magic trick — both exactly what you expect and nothing like you’d imagine. It is, in its most pure form, a joint with the whole history of South Philly written on its face. But then the food starts arriving. And it is plain and unpretentious and also just so much better than you thought it could be. It’s a shock the first time. A comfort every time after. And each time, when you’re done, all you can wonder is why every meal in this town can’t be exactly this simple, and this good.

3 Stars — Come from anywhere in Philly

Rating Key
0 stars: stay away
★: come if you have no other options
★★: come if you’re in the neighborhood
★★★: come from anywhere in Philly
★★★★: come from anywhere in America

Published as “Red Gravy Royalty” in the April 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.