Eataly is here: 21,000 square feet of Italian breadcrumbs, sauces, and oils; wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano; cases full of pastries, fresh pastas, sandwiches, cheeses, and salami; racks of packaged snacks; and a reach-in fridge full of caviar tins. Plus a wine shop, counters with coffee, gelato, and pizza, and a 200-seat restaurant with room for 90 more people outside.
The Philadelphia area’s first Eataly store opens at 3 p.m. Thursday at King of Prussia Mall. (It replaces Rite Aid and Forever 21, with its own entrance to the parking lot near the Orange parking garage.) Based on a preview Monday morning, during which the curious sneaked looks through the mall doors, interest in the store is keen.
That makes sense: Its arrival was announced two years ago.
Eataly’s backstory
Electronics magnate Oscar Farinetti founded Eataly in 2007 in a once-abandoned Carpano Vermouth factory in Turin, with a dream of creating a hypermarket showcasing Italian food and culture as well as spotlighting the Slow Food movement. His early business partners included chef Mario Batali (who gave up his minority ownership in 2019 amid accusations that he sexually harassed and groped women) and chefs/TV personalities Joe and Lidia Bastianich.
Farinetti exported Eataly to New York in 2010 and ushered in a slow growth of the concept, now totaling 60 stores worldwide.
In 2015, rumors began circulating that the company was considering a Center City Philadelphia location at the Gallery, now the Fashion District Philadelphia, but nothing panned out. Meanwhile, Eataly was expanding to Chicago, Toronto, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, and the Silicon Valley. In 2022, a European private equity company bought the Farinetti family’s majority share of the company, and North American growth began to explode.
The King of Prussia location was announced in August 2023, about two months before Tommaso Brusò was named as the first chief executive with Eataly North America, a new unit of the company. The Venetian-born Brusò’s previous career was in the fashion industry; he helped lead such brands as Colorful Standard, Benetton, and Diesel.
What you’ll see at Eataly
Brusò said he considers Eataly as “a gate to Italy,” through its mix of restaurant, quick-service retail counters (where mozzarella is pulled and breads and pastries are baked on premises), bins of local produce, fridges stocked with cured and fresh meats, and shelves full of packaged food items made by Italian vendors.
Though mostly everything is imported, the current uncertainty of tariffs does not seem to concern Brusò greatly. “It’s something that [causes] turbulence,” he said, shrugging. “We’re navigating [the new rules] like everybody.”
Eataly has recently begun selling its own branded merchandise, like pasta and coffee, as gift items. “We are an Italian lifestyle brand,” Brusò said. “We call ourselves ‘the Italian art of living.’”
An Eataly spokesperson said this store has 3,000 stock-keeping units (or SKUs), grocery-speak for number of items including fresh foods and in-house production. That’s a small fraction of a typical full-line supermarket’s inventory. Eataly is also rolling out much smaller Eataly Caffe locations in such busy locations as JFK Airport and Hudson Yards in New York.
The King of Prussia store, which employs 200 people, also has an educational space, called La Scuola, offering cooking workshops, wine tastings, and special dinners. King of Prussia has not yet set that schedule, as leadership wants to get through the opening phase. The store will start 10 days of grand opening events on Saturday.
Education started with the staff; Brusò said the wine-shop employees, for example, know the 450-bottle Italian list.
Brusò said he doesn’t consider Eataly to be competing with local Italian restaurants or grocery stores. “We are more like entertainment,” he said. “We are an alternative to [nonfood] shopping or even going to a movie theater.”
The typical customer, Brusò said, visits for more than an hour. “It’s not like a place you come, you shop, and you leave,” he said. Eataly attracts a broad clientele: families, singles, kids, and couples, with pricing that runs the gamut from cappuccinos and pastry to pizza ($21 for the margherita to a $30 pie layered with mushrooms and truffle cream) to a full-on restaurant dinner featuring spaghetti al pomodoro ($23), pollo alla Milanese ($34), or the shareable Double R Ranch grilled ribeye, crispy potatoes, and Mediterranean sauce ($85).
“No matter what, it’s important to deliver value and a piece of culture,” Brusò said.