South Philadelphia native Tom Caruso is the founder and owner of Oregon-born winery Pray Tell, and is bringing the winery to Olde Kensington, writes Emma Dooling for the Philadelphia Business Journal.

The plan is for it to open to the public on August 3.

The winery will share a building with East Coast Tropicals, the 30-year-old business owned by his mother, which imports and sells West African foods to restaurants and individuals.

Caruso founded Pray Tell in 2017, opening the winery’s Oregon facility the following year. He continued working for other winemakers until he was able to take the business full-time in 2022.

Today, Pray Tell produces around 2,000 cases of eight to 10 different wines annually. One of the winery’s bottles recently made a cameo in the third season of the chef-centered Hulu series, “The Bear.”

Pray Tell’s Philadelphia location will be more than 3,000 square feet of space, split between production, tasting room, and back-of-house areas.

According to Caruso, the open-concept space will allow customers in the tasting room to see the winemaking process in action.

“We wanted to have a dedicated hospitality space here, but we wanted people to really — again, with that emphasis on educating and kind of demystifying this — [see] what the process really looks like,” he said.

Read more about Pray Tell’s arrival to Olde Kensington in the Philadelphia Business Journal.

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