Breezy’s Deli Reinvents the Neighborhood Market

A hoagie, smoothie, and chips: the ultimate bodega trifecta. / Photograph by Bre Furlong

Breezy’s is what a Wawa would be if there were only one, and it were run by a chef and baker with an incurable hoagie fixation. It is the neighborhood market everyone dreams must exist somewhere they’re not — a place where you can get local jerky, perfect cantaloupes, boutique hot sauces, Italian olive oil, fresh flowers, kombucha, dry salami, and loaves of seeded bread from Sarcone’s — and where a touchscreen Botrista robot whips up smoothies made from fresh juice and fruit purees. Candy-striped, bright, and stuffed to the rafters with a carefully curated selection of local and imported products, it is chef Chad Durkin’s vision of what a local market could be — what it should be if you’ve got the skills and the connections to make it great.

And Durkin does. Ex of Le Bec-Fin’s pastry department and Susanna Foo back in the day, he’s spent years in the industry. He owns Porco’s Porchetteria and Small Oven Pastry just down the block, in the space that used to be Kermit’s Bake Shoppe (where he also used to work). Stand at the window at Porco’s (where Durkin and his crew roast the turkey for the deli counter at Breezy’s) and, if you had a championship arm and a tight spiral, you could almost throw a hoagie from one and hit the other.

Speaking of which, as nice and easy and convenient as the market is, it’s the hoagies from the back counter that are the real draw. They’re monster sandwiches with goofy names like the Beer Jesus, the Dark Horse, and the Tush Push. You order via touchscreen (again, just like at Wawa), and the kitchen goes to work. The Tush Push is a roast beef hoagie as thick as my forearm, smeared with a jolt of pickled pepper relish, layered with horseradish cheddar, and funked up with crumbled provolone so strong you can smell it through the sandwich paper. The Beer Jesus is essentially a turkey BLT, but so much better, made with house-roasted turkey, Gruyère, smoked bacon mayo, and a tomato-and-cherry spread that adds a sting of sweetness, the whole thing padded out with field greens and razor-thin slices of tomato and slicked down with “hoagie juice” that’s equal parts oil, herbs, and magic.

The smoothies from the kitchen robot are a little watery, and you’re certainly not getting out the door with lunch at Hoagiefest prices, but otherwise, Breezy’s is so worth it. It’s small and singular, neighborhood-focused, proud and scrappy and so much better than it needs to be. It’s the neighborhood deli and grocery that every neighborhood deserves but so rarely gets.

Plus robots.

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 “A Modern Convenience” in the October 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.