La Porchetta’s Rathdowne St, Carlton, birthplace for sale almost forty years after it opened
The 388-394 Rathdowne St, Carlton, birthplace of La Porchetta pizza has been listed for sale as the founding families prepare to move on.
Carlton’s birthplace of the La Porchetta Italian restaurant has been served up for sale with a $6m-$6.6m asking price.
Founded by Rocco “Rocky” Pantaleo and Felice Nania in 1985, the restaurant became a Melbourne institution and turned into a pizza empire with dozens of franchises across Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia.
It continued to operate for more than a decade after the passing of Mr Pantaleo in 2010, but closed its doors in February last year — almost forty years after he and Mr Nania began serving pizzas from it.
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At the time the family’s posted on social media saying they had been proud to help establish a Melbourne institution and setting the standard for Italian restaurant franchises in Australia, but noted that it was now time “for the family to move on to new beginnings and pursue new ventures”.
During that time, the restaurant expanded to cover four neighbouring buildings from 388 to 394 Rathdowne St, making it one of the largest single holdings in the popular northern-suburbs shopping village.
Even with the old photos and the tables and chairs removed the former restaurant still has a familiar look that past patrons might well remember from decades ago.
The restaurant’s old pizza oven has been one of Melbourne’s most prolific.
Nelson Alexander’s Damien Theisz is handling the sale on behalf of the two families who still own the expansive property and said it was the largest combined holding he was aware of ever having been listed.
“I’m not aware of any other like this,” Mr Theisz said.
“And just walking through it, seeing all the photos on the walls, it was just unbelievable.
“It’s a piece of Melbourne history. And I hate to think about how many pizzas would have gone through that oven.”
With 20 metres of frontage to Rathdowne St, and spanning 515sq m, Mr Theisz said while he wasn’t ruling out interest from restaurant and retail groups, with the prospect it could also be rented out for $320,000-$340,000 a year, he had already talked to small and medium development firms about the site.
With four neighbouring properties for sale, the site is one of the biggest in the Rathdowne St village.
The restaurant stopped serving more than a year ago, though the agent tasked with selling it hasn’t ruled out the chance a new dining venue could open up there.
There are heritage protections in place for parts of it, but pending council approvals he said it was likely any buyer would be considering the possibility of developing upwards in the future given the size of the site.
Mr Theisz added that if the eventual buyer wanted the building’s owning families might well be open to seeing if they could get one more pizza out of its ovens.
“I’m sure the vendors could work something out and crank up the pizza oven for one more time,” he said.
Expressions of interest for the properties close at 3pm on June 4.
La Porchetta still has restaurants serving in a number of locations including South Yarra and Footscray.
It’s possible that future owners could look to develop upwards.
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