Of olives, bruschetta, and family dinners: They remember their travels to Marco Polo restaurant in Elkins Park

The memories of Marco Polo are as fresh as they are poignant.

Locals are mourning the closure of the Italian restaurant, whose 27-year run in Elkins Park seems be over. Closed by smoke and water damage during a fire in its shopping mall on June 18, it has not reopened and its furnishings sit beneath plastic sheets. Its owners, the Duva family, told The Inquirer last week that they were still awaiting word from the insurance company and that nothing had been resolved about the future. However, Maria Romano, a Realtor with Delphi Property Group, said Marco Polo’s lease was up and she is seeking to find a new tenant.

Meanwhile, as employees have moved on, customers are left with their memories of the brass-and-glass-filled Italian restaurant in Elkins Park Square, an office-retail mall at Old York and Church Roads.

Leung Lo, widely known as Chef Lo, opened Marco Polo in 1996 as one of the more upscale offerings in Eastern Montgomery County. (The name was a pun of the Italian merchant and his Chinese heritage and surname.) Marco Polo followed a location of Gullifty’s, a sports bar founded in Bryn Mawr, and a short-lived Italian restaurant called Caffe Raffaello.

Lo sold Marco Polo in 2005 to the Duvas, who also operate Carollo’s Pizzeria in Pennsauken and Tacos El Tio in Medford and Egg Harbor. Lo himself went on to open Villa Barolo in Warrington.

Marco Polo was a solid destination (with an equally busy takeout door on the side) whose clientele seemed to age with the restaurant. In 1999, Inquirer critic Craig LaBan called it “a friendly suburban Italian that surpassed any expectations its strip-mall packaging might arouse.”

Virtually all the customers interviewed for this article recall the complimentary green olives and bread.

Former customers like Suzy Bonn regarded Marco Polo as “our go-to for family dinners when I was a kid,” she said. “It had such a cozy and comforting ambiance. I loved their carbonara but for some reason what I remember most were those bright green olives in oil and the sorbetto in the frozen lemons and peaches.”

Pam Salazar Doyle, like other locals, also wants closure regarding the closure. “We really want to know what happened, though we know it won’t change the outcome,” she said. “It was one of the places we used to go with Grandmother 25 years ago and with my dad now, as well as with my kids. It was a staple. We counted on it. We also would do takeout, which was as good as dine-in.”

Sarah Boyette recalled how her parents went on double dates there and how it was the first place she ever had bruschetta.

“My memory was eating ostrich for the first time there, and my grandma telling me it was chicken,” said Victoria M. from North Philadelphia.

To longtime customer Ellen Sinoff, it was a special place to her and her mother. “We went there to meet visiting relatives who stayed in the northern suburbs — not just because it was halfway in between, but because it was convenient to Montefiore Cemetery, where all of the relatives on my mother’s side of the family are buried.” Lunch at Marco Polo always followed their cemetery visits. When her mother died, family and friends gathered at Montefiore for the graveside service. “After, we went to lunch,” Sinoff said. “It was our last lunch at Marco Polo.”

Madison Alpern recalled “chilly winter nights walking hand in hand with my baba [grandfather[ to go pick up dinner. My nana would always order a Parmesan of some kind, while I was always so excited for the penne vodka and Caesar salad. Years later, I associate any penne vodka I see on a menu with the memories I hold of time spent with my grandparents around the dinner table.”

Ellen Liebman and her parents, Sam and Debbie Liebman, recalled Lo’s special menus, even for Passover and the high holidays. “Mom always loved their osso buco, so my dad would call ahead and they would save a serving for her,” Ellen Liebman said.

Michael Foell, who worked at Marco Polo from 2002 to 2017, said he loved “the constant busyness, the excitement and chaos of serving hundreds of people on a busy night, and of course the staff — a ragtag team made up of hard-working people who in their own right were so much fun.”

Foell called it a staple in the community. Every year, Myers Elementary School celebrated its fourth-grade graduation at the restaurant, ushering off students to Elkins Park Middle School. It also was popular after Cheltenham High School’s graduation each June.

The regulars were loyal to their servers. “When I graduated in college in 2008, I received many graduation gifts,” Foell said. “I was dumbfounded by people’s generosity. The cards all had a similar theme — they had watched me work my way through school and wanted to celebrate.”

The staff bonded as a family, he said. “Chef Lo used to tell me I went to two types of school — my actual college and Marco Polo,” Foell said. “He was right. I learned so much about life there. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.”