The vintage and collectible cars stacked behind glass at Fishtown’s new Cannonball club may be the obvious attraction, but founder Chris Allen thinks people need another reason to stick around — and, more important, to come back.
That’s where the focaccia sandwiches come in.
Cannonball, the new private club for car enthusiasts near the Fillmore, has brought in Focaccia Affair — a fledgling business from Anthony Santucci and Gianluca Mazzarelli — to run its food operations. The club, housed in the sprawling former Morse Elevator Works at 1105 Frankford Ave., combines car storage with social and coworking space, a bar, and a public-facing cafe where you can gawk at classic cars through the window while sipping espresso.
The cafe, open to anyone, is where Santucci’s focaccia sandwiches take center stage. He’s offering two sandwiches, plus cookies and coffee, to start.
Santucci, whose family operates Santucci’s Original Square Pizza, developed the bread after moving to San Diego before the pandemic. He had initially considered expanding his family’s pizza business there but began experimenting with focaccia as table bread and as a possible addition to the pizza operation.
The experiment eventually became something else.
Santucci and Mazzarelli, a former VIP manager at Barstool on Sansom Street, were friends whose common bonds include hockey and Italian food. After Santucci returned from a 2024 trip to Italy raving about a focaccia sandwich he had eaten, the two made one using the recipe he had been developing.
Focaccia Affair grew from there, although quietly. Santucci and Mazzarelli started testing the sandwiches over the last year through small catering orders and by dropping off food for restaurant staffs around Philadelphia.
The business is now making its formal debut on two fronts: at Cannonball, where it’s open daily, and at Barstool Sansom Street in Washington Square West. The Barstool menu, which started Thursday, is more extensive than Cannonball’s: six focaccia sandwiches, crostini (on focaccia), burgers on brioche buns, salads, and appetizers.
Santucci said the bread — which took months of development — is baked after a 48-hour cold fermentation. The result is focaccia with a crispy crust and fruity olive oil flavor. Its sturdy interior holds up to substantial fillings without turning the sandwich into a sloppy mess.
Cannonball’s cafe will generally offer two or three focaccia sandwiches at a time, rotating them seasonally. Currently, the Muse combines mortadella and stracciatella, a pairing that puts the bread’s structure to good use. (It also survives a test that many sandwiches do not: refrigeration. Gently reheated in a toaster oven the next day, I found the bread just as good.) The Situationship layers sliced turkey, goat cheese, arugula, and fig jam between focaccia, the jam’s sweetness playing against the peppery greens and tangy cheese.
Santucci has begun developing breakfast versions; the first combines soft-scrambled eggs and bacon with house-made Calabrian chile-infused hot honey. Pastries are being developed, too, including a pumpkin cinnamon roll with brown-butter icing.
Focaccia Affair also oversees food for Cannonball members and their guests upstairs. Dinner starts at 4 p.m. daily with a six- to eight-item menu modeled on Italian aperitivo culture: smaller dishes designed for sharing rather than conventional entrées. Fresh pastas and additional desserts are expected to join the menu in October.
Allen said food was essential to his plan for Cannonball, because even a spectacular collection of automobiles has limits as a daily attraction.
“You can visit the most amazing car collection in the world, but after 15 or 20 minutes, you want to sit down, have a coffee, and eat a sandwich,” he said. “Most of all, you want a reason to come back tomorrow.”
Focaccia Affair, 1105 Frankford Ave., instagram.com/focaccia_affair. Hours: 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays; 8 a.m. until roughly 3:30 or 4 p.m. weekends.