PaPa J’s Twin Plaza Restaurant has something for whatever you may be craving. Soup? They’ve got pasta e fagioli or wedding soups – two classic Italian dishes. Of course, they have the classics: polenta parmigiano, sauteéd banana peppers, classic Italian and margherita pizzas, and pasta, from ravioli to radiatori. It doesn’t stop there: they have a full bar, with Italian cocktails, and housemade gelato to top things off. 

July is National Ice Cream Month and there is truly no better time to celebrate it. With temperatures and the humidity only continuing to rise all month, enjoying a cold ice cream cone or milkshake inside has never sounded better.

Downtown Neighbors Alliance went to PaPa J’s this week to taste their wedding soup. We made a great choice of restaurants and a great selection to try. Wedding soup is sometimes called Italian Penicillin, because this bone broth soup is a comfort food that heals the sick.

Michael Troiani has been around the restaurant industry his whole life. As one of eight children, he jokes that “a Sunday dinner was like a restaurant event.” When he was 9, his father opened Papa J’s first location in Cranberry where he spent his youth cleaning tables and his later years in the kitchen before taking the reins of ownership around 2000.