Caterer buys long-vacant Plainfield Township building to build business

A Lehigh Valley caterer is setting up shop in Plainfield Township. 

Chef Angelo Napoli, 34, has purchased a long vacant three-story building at 5664 Sullivan Trail and plans to convert it into a commercial kitchen for his catering business, Modern Fusion Catering.  

Modern Fusion Catering specializes in custom menus for weddings, celebrations and corporate events. 

According to a press release, Napoli plans to completely gut the building and outfit it as the main prep kitchen for his catering business, which he plans to someday expand beyond Pennsylvania.  

“This is going to be a completely new wave of wedding food everywhere as we don’t do typical wedding food,” Napoli said. “We are totally different.” 

Napoli, who grew up in Bethlehem Township, said he often saw the building on Sullivan Trail on his way to his father’s pizzeria in Bangor, Napoli’s Pizza, on South First Street. He said he often thought it would make a great restaurant and had dreams of buying it one day. 

Napoli, who started his catering business in 2015, had been using his dad’s restaurant kitchen. But his catering business has expanded to the degree that he needed to find his own place.  

“We were getting too busy for it to be for two businesses,” Napoli said. 

Napoli expects the renovations to be complete by mid-summer. The catering kitchen will have a tasting room for wedding clients by appointment.  

It will not have a dining room open to the public. 

Apartments are planned for the second floor and possibly for the third floor if zoning allows, Napoli said. Each floor is 2500 square feet. 

Napoli has some big goals for the property. He said he plans to franchise his business and use the commercial kitchen as the main food supplier.  

“My idea is to franchise the company, but this is where the main food supplier will be,” Napoli said. 

Jeff Barber of Lehigh Financial Group LLC in Allentown arranged the business loan so that Napoli could buy the building and convert it into a commercial kitchen on the first floor and apartments on the second. 

The purchase closed at the end of February.