Your hotel in the center of Bari

“Mèh, fàmmene scì, ca-iè ttarde!” – “Aspìitte, addò và, mò vènene le gelate do furne”.
“Mèh, let me go, it’s late!" – "Wait, where are you going? The oven-baked ice creams are about to arrive”.

Familiar with witty linguistic inventions, this peculiar saying of the sharp-witted people of Bari has a precise historical reference. It originated in the late 1920s thanks to the famous ice creams from Felice Lippolis' pastry shop and gelateria, located in Piazza Sant'Antonio and advertised to the public at the first Fiera del Levante in 1930.

However, we are not here to talk about this, but rather about another "initiative" born from Lippolis' brilliant mind: the Hotel Adria, which has been around for over a century. In fact, it was inaugurated in 1922.

But what do we know about Felice Lippolis? He was born on October 7, 1874, into a family of coffee shop and pastry owners from Noci.

His grandfather, Felice (born in 1818), the youngest of seven children, left Noci in 1856 and moved to Bari, opening a confectionery café in Barivecchia, at Piazza Arcivescovado 8/9. He brought with him his wife and three children: Giuseppe, Chiara, and Anna. Drawing on his experience as a coffee shop owner in Noci, he launched a specialty of egg tarallini coated in syrup (could they have been the first "écchie de sanda Lecì"?), which became quite successful.

His son Giuseppe, after completing elementary school, went to work at the "Spezieria Manuale" café of Michele Scarano on Corso V. Emanuele II. There, he worked as an apprentice alongside Francesco Bitetto (known as "u marenaridde"), with whom he developed a strong friendship. After learning the trade, he returned to work with his father Felice, starting the production of sugared almonds. At twenty-two, he married Maria Michela Bonante, daughter of the late Tommaso, and on October 7, 1874, their son Felice was born. He lost his mother at the age of three.

His father remarried, and from this union, seven children were born, though only Vito and Girolamo survived. Widowed again, Giuseppe married for a third time.

At fourteen, Felice began working at Antonio Tomasicchio’s pastry shop on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. In 1899, at twenty-four, he married Maria Spadafina, a seventeen-year-old orphan who brought as her dowry a small building on Via Zuppetta (the future Hotel Adria). They had five children: Giuseppe (1900), Nicola (1902, future city councilor and creator of the "Maggio Barese" festival), Mario (1904), Maria (1906), and Alberto (1908).

The years of World War I were terrible, as the production of sweets was banned. After managing to avoid military service, Felice started traveling across Italy, buying and selling various goods. Among his business ventures, he purchased the management of a hotel in Pula for 300,000 crowns (180,000 lire) and moved to Trieste. However, it wasn’t just business—many people from Bari frequented that area.

Upon returning to Bari, while his wife resumed running the pastry shop, Felice began renovating his building on Via Zuppetta, turning it into a hotel. In 1921, he inaugurated the Hotel Regina, and the following year, the Hotel Adria was born.