He was just welcoming them to Killadelphia
That shopping street is very much just for the local residents. Can't imagine an out-of-towner going there unless they were a houseguest in one of the nearby rowhomes. So my guess is that the women were very familiar with the existential threat as well as their shopping destination, but the callousness of this crime was especially unexpected, since the mob tranditionally protected much of east South Philly. Advances in digital tech have made it easier for prosecutors to lock the mobsters up. Community has lost their extra layer of "law" enforcememt.