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Dietz & Watson to open a pop-up store on South St.

The store, due to open in May, will sell Dietz Nuts, a meat snack, as well as other branded products.

The building at Fifth and South Streets that will house the Dietz & Watson pop-up shop on April 9, 2019.
The building at Fifth and South Streets that will house the Dietz & Watson pop-up shop on April 9, 2019.Read moreMICHAEL KLEIN / Staff

Philadelphia-grown meat-and-cheese company Dietz & Watson, now aiming to show a more youthful visage after 80 years, will open a branded retail shop at Fifth and South Streets in early May.

The store, to operate through July in the former Net apparel store at 501 South St., will sell products and apparel, said Lauren Eni, Dietz & Watson’s vice president of brand strategy and granddaughter of Ruth “Momma Dietz” Eni, the company’s longtime public face, who died in February.

An official announcement is forthcoming.

Eni said the company was working again with Philadelphia creative agency Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners (RTO+P), which created a Super Bowl commercial starring Craig Robinson of The Office and his brother, Chris, to showcase a bite-size-sausage snack called Dietz Nuts -- playing off the meme “Deez Nuts.”

The company took the snack to market via Amazon and its own website, where it also sells T-shirts and a Dietz Nuts tote.

Dietz & Watson, founded by Gottlieb F. Dietz in 1939 near the Ben Franklin Bridge, now operates out of a sprawling plant in Tacony. (“Watson” was early partner Walter Watson, whose name was kept because it sounded good, says company lore.)