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“Philadelphia reminds us of Brooklyn!” exclaims Ukrainian born Olga Tsisyk when I ask her why she and her husband Igor opened up their shop on Broad Street.
Igor and Olga, with Candy Cat
“We never knew about South Philly. Our friends moved down here from New York and we followed. Philadelphia is a beautiful city.”After selling their mini-mart in the Ukraine, the Tsisyks, arrived in the United States eight years ago. “We wanted to stay with the food business but didn’t want to open a hoagie shop because we don’t know anything about hoagies,” says Olga.” But a lot of people like to eat healthy and since there was no other competition we decided on specializing in the dried fruits and nuts”.
Happy customer Mary Masino with Igor and Olga
Walking in the store is like walking into a fine wine shop. Wooden shelves hold row after row of neatly package products from around the world. Brazil, Turkey, Poland and the good old U S of A are represented. The variety of nuts, seeds beans, and peas are staggering. You can get them salted, unsalted, raw, roasted, shelled, unshelled, chopped, glazed, and flavored with honey, chili, lemon, wasabi and jalapeno.There are filberts, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, cashews, pecans, squash seeds, watermelon seeds, sunflower seeds, soy nuts, corn nuts, well, you get my drift, and whatever you want in a nut or seed is there.The dried fruit selection is equally as impressive with dried cherries, cranberries, peaches, apricots, cantaloupe, strawberries, apples, mango, papaya, bananas, dates and figs.