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Gallo's Seafood: 'We don't have a lot of craziness here'

"At one time, we were really, really cheap, but fish was really, really cheap," says Fran Galloway, son of the founders. "Now, seafood's very expensive. We're not cheap anymore, but there's good value here."

We always hear about the shiny, new food companies. The Spot is a series about the Philadelphia area's more established establishments and the people behind them.

In 1966, Frank and Diane Galloway opened an Italian restaurant in Wildwood. They grew restless from the seasonal business, so in 1970, they opened a seafood take-out in Northeast Philadelphia behind a shopping center on Frankford Avenue at Academy Road. People asked for tables at Gallo's, and the business grew.

Beset by parking issues, the Galloways moved in 1983, buying a lot on Roosevelt Boulevard at Holme Circle and erecting a building. A decade later, they expanded and remodeled, shedding the fluorescent lighting.

You're solid...

Yes, this year's going to be a good ... Look, it's never what you want. You couldn't even get more people in here, we want it to be busier. You always want to be busier. We were never the type, I don't know if it's going to happen, we've had many times we've had the idea, "Okay, let's open a second place." You know what? There's so much going on here and now we're raising families. It's a huge commitment to open a second place the way we do it. We don't have investors, we don't have ... It's us. We put our money up. We put our time up. For the people working here even, we settled into a nice rhythm for this business where the chef was off all weekend, it was fine. We were busy all weekend, but we have enough people here to cover. We don't have a lot of craziness here. Sometimes the restaurant business can be a crazy business. We don't really have that. It's stable.

Is there another generation coming up?

It's going to be a while if there is. They're young; we started late. I've got twins, 12 years old. My sister has one son; he's 8.