RESTAURANT'S TILE FLOOR IS A TRIBUTE TO LOST ART
You walk through the front door of Ralph's Italian Restaurant in South Philadelphia and you immediately find yourself standing on a work of art. Few people probably ever think of the floor at Ralph's as a work of art, but it truly is.
The tile floor was already in place in 1915 when Francesco Dispigno bought the boarding house at 760 South 9th Street and moved his restaurant a couple of blocks from where it had been located since 1900.
"The tile work and design represents an art form and craftsmanship that has been lost in our modern times, we guess that the work was done in the 1890's," said Jimmy Rubino Jr., Francesco's great grandson and fourth generation operator of America's oldest family owned Italian restaurant.
"Each tile on both the first and second floor was carefully put in place, one-at-a-time," he added, "in fact if you look at the floors very closely you can detect variations in the design where the artist, perhaps, was distracted or quit for the day."
The irony of the story is that the tile work on the first floor was almost lost forever.
Back in 1972, a year after Ralph Dispigno Sr., Francesco's son, had died, his children, now operating the restaurant decided that it was time to modernize and renovate the place. Not only were the entrance re-done and the walls, but a slate floor was placed over top of the tile and embedded in cement. "No one really thought of the tile as anything but an old floor then," Rubino, who was 11-at-the-time, said.
And so, for 21 years, the tile on the first floor remained covered.
In 1993 it was time for another renovation and the family decided to have the slate floor removed and replaced with, of all things, a tile floor. "We picked the tile, bought it, hired a contractor and ordered the work to be done," Rubino recalled.
His Mother, Elaine, the youngest of Ralph's children and Ralph Jr., who were operating the restaurant at the time decided to close for a couple of weeks that summer so that the renovations could go on without interruption.
"Everybody went away on vacation, except me," Rubino recalls, "and I'd stop by and see how the work was going every day. And one day I walked through the door and there were workmen with sledgehammers whacking away at the slate floor and as it came up I noticed that the old tile was not only still intact, but it was undamaged and, frankly, very beautiful."
Rubino laughs when he recalls what happened next. "I saw the old floor and just as the guy was about to take another whack at it I dove in front of him, on my hands and knees, and yelled 'stop' as loud as I could. The guy thought I was nuts, but he stopped."
Almost like a miracle, the old floor was undamaged and preserved below the slate and cement and, on Rubino's orders; the rest of it was removed very carefully.
Jimmy conferred with his Uncles Ralph and Michael and they decided that the old floor should be restored -and they also agreed to do so but not tell Elaine and keep it as a surprise for her when she returned from vacation. Elaine actually was in California visiting family friend, actor/singer, James Darren and had no idea of what was transpiring in South Philadelphia and they gave her no hint when she called to see "how things were going".
Over the next week or so the workmen cleaned and polished the old floor and, recalls Rubino, "we were stuck with a load of new tile that we had already purchased for the restaurant floor."
Elaine returned home at the end of the two weeks at 9 p.m. on a Sunday night, and arrived at her residence, which is next door to the restaurant. Jimmy met her and said that he had a surprise for her. "We made her close her eyes as she walked in to the restaurant," Jimmy said, "to build up the suspense."
"I didn't know what they were up to," Elaine recalls, "but I never expected to see the old floor shining and bright, just as I remembered it as a child. All I could say was 'Oh My God', it was like a miracle."
A miracle that visitors to Ralph's can not only behold and enjoy - but walk on without fear of anything happening to it.