Where to eat Memorial Day weekend | Let’s Eat

As we head into Memorial Day weekend, let’s look at new dining options, both here and there. Also this week, we’ll take you inside the spiffy new Weavers Way Co-op and climb on board the new bus serving afternoon tea. (Do not check your SEPTA app for a “Route Tea.”)

— Mike Klein

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From West Philly to Wildwood, farmers markets create the intersection of fresh and local. Hira Qureshi offers a pick of the produce outlets in the Greater Philadelphia area.

Hummus and pita for 450 people? Mike Solomonov is the new in-house caterer at Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. His company’s catering arm, Lilah Events, wasn’t even looking for a deal when approached by the museum.

Tea Around Town combines a bus tour with British-style afternoon tea. If the premise of enjoying Earl Grey and tea sandwiches while navigating Center City streets strikes you as precarious, well, join Jenn Ladd for a ride.

Weavers Way’s new Germantown market has opened. Jenn Ladd walks through the 6,000-square-foot store to see what $8 million bought the co-op’s members.

Liberty Beer Garden will be Independence Mall’s second beer garden by July 4. Avram Hornik of Four Corners Management has struck a deal to place it next to the Independence Visitor Center at Sixth and Market Streets. He says the tented pop-up, similar to his Walnut Garden near Rittenhouse Square, will be an adjunct to his Liberty Point restaurant at Penn’s Landing. “The visitor center gets a million visitors a year,” Hornik said. “This really gives us the opportunity to introduce Philadelphia to a whole bunch of people visiting the city.” Hornik doesn’t view Liberty as competition to the nearby Independence Beer Garden, which he calls “a great place. The more places that are there, the better it is for everyone.”

Reuben Asaram is Kampar’s first chef in residence, and he’s offering a prix fixe menu on the street level of Ange Branca’s dual-concept restaurant at 611 S. Seventh St. in Bella Vista. Upstairs, Branca oversees her kongsi, or social club, with a Malaysian bar and food menu; downstairs, she’s ceded the wood-fired oven and open kitchen to up-and-coming chefs from underrepresented cultures, whom she tutors about the restaurant business. (And boy, has she had an education herself.) The Queens-born Asaram, 32, known for his Reuby pop-ups fusing Mexican and Asian flavors, is doing a four-course, $90 Indian feast dubbed Sunny’s Table, featuring his spins on samosa chaat, tandoori chicken, “my grandfather’s lamb kebabs,” and a chai tres leches in collaboration with chef Cote Tapia-Marmugi from Mole Street Baker. (Reserve here.) Asaram, who is also working with Taco Bell on a special Crunchwrap Supreme that will be unveiled later this year, will be at Kampar for two years, after which he wants to open his own restaurant.

Montana Houston, 27, the South Jersey native who recently left Restaurant Aleksandar near Rittenhouse Square, will become executive chef at Eleven Social (117 Chestnut St.), the Old City restaurant backed by Phillies alum Jimmy Rollins. Opening is expected in mid-July, says co-owner Matt DeLima. (Shown above is Houston, at right, with executive sous chef Ja’Mir Wimberly-Cole.) More immediately, on June 1 Houston will be in New York as part of the James Beard House’s Iconoclast Dinner for rising chefs. He said he is still working out his Eleven Social focus. “Whether it’s global, New American, or Southern, whatever I do is definitely going to have some flair and culture,” Houston told me Sunday. He plans to draw on his past at Hopewell’s farm-to-table Brick Farm Tavern, where he got what he calls “my introduction to gastronomy and fine dining” through then-chefs Greg Vassos (now partner at Creed’s in King of Prussia) and Max Hosey (now running the vegan Hosers Central Kitchen in Chestnut Hill).

Queen & Rook. Talk about stepping up your game. Or in this case, games. Edward Garcia and Jeannie Wong have doubled the size of their Queen Village game cafe as it moved around the corner into the former Pietro’s Pizzeria on South Street. The cavernous, brick-walled main room’s roomy tables are set for friends to gather to play one of the 2,000-plus games while eating a full food menu. (Pizza is on the way.) There’s a more intimate game room, two bars, and two outdoor seating areas, including a balcony. Downstairs, bathed in black light, is a retro video game arcade, including air hockey, with free play (no cards or coins; you pay by the hour). Garcia is evoking nostalgia here: “When I was growing up, there was a shopping center with a supermarket, a shoe store, a laundromat, and an arcade and that’s really what I wanted to go for. Something small, kind of fun but not too much.”

Queen & Rook, 123 South St., Hours: 5-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5 p.m.-midnight Friday, noon-midnight Saturday, noon-9 p.m. Sunday.

Ross & Co. Bob Ross — who has 45 years in the biz, nearly half with TGI Fridays — has taken over the shuttered Bernie’s Pub, a 320-seater in downtown Hatboro. It’s a companion to GypsyBlu in Ambler, which he, his wife, Sue, and sons took over in 2020.

Count on something-for-everyone pub fare, cocktails, and wines. Seating options include the oversize bar, a balcony, and two private dining rooms, one with a bar. Brunch will start in two months.

Ross & Co., 58 S. York Rd., Hatboro. Hours: 11 a.m.-midnight Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Pinwheel Provisions. Anjali Gupta’s “fresh frozen” meal-solutions business, which moved recently from Narberth to Bryn Mawr, has bought in a new chef (Colin Mason, previously chef de cuisine at the nearby Pullman) and rolled out a line of creative sandwiches based on her travels (she’s lived in France, Italy, Britain, and Scandinavia, and her husband is British) and made with health in mind. There’s a vegan Bombay toastie, a grilled triangle filled with spiced potato and pea and mint chutney on Merzbacher’s sweet potato bread; an open-faced smørrebrød, combining chicken salad, blueberries, red onion, toasted almonds, fresh greens, mint, and yogurt dressing atop seeded polenta bread; and something called Three for Tea, an assortment of English tea sandwiches. All sandwiches can be made gluten free. View the full menu here.

Pinwheel Provisions, 860 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Closed Wednesday and Sunday.

Char, Viraj Thomas’ itinerant pizza parlor, will do a pop-up takeover-slash-residency at Mish Mish (11th and Tasker Streets) from 5-10 p.m. Friday-Sunday. A la carte service and walk-ins only for a Caesar salad, focaccia, assorted pizzas, and two desserts.

Tambayan, Kathy Mirano’s Filipino stand at Reading Terminal Market, will throw down lechon baboy platters from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday as a fundraiser for Work, a group that aids families in Haiti.

Collingswood’s annual May Fair on Saturday will feature a pop-up from Nunzio chef/owner Michael DeLone, who will sell chicken sandwiches out of the back door under the name Cluck’s Chicken. Two varieties: Calabrian hot and an Italian ($10), plus tomato salt and vinegar chips ($4), or a combo with a bottle of water for $13.

The Great Chefs Event, Marc Vetri and Jeff Benjamin’s annual gathering of local and national chefs and beverage folks at Urban Outfitter’s Navy Yard HQ to benefit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, is June 8 from 1-4 p.m. Tickets ($250) are still available.

Online agita has accompanied a new food business in South Philly. Why the ruckus?

A) It’s a sandwich shop called Rizzo’s, an homage to the late mayor and police commissioner.

B) It’s a bagel shop called Slice & Schmear offering scooped bagels.

C) It’s a cat cafe called Purrfectly Purrsian that allows people to dress the kitties in costumes.

D) It’s a diner called How Youse Doin’? whose entire menu consists of dishes with “jawn” in the name.

Find out if you know the answer.

You recently wrote of an award for Christa Barfield. Your article mentioned her FarmerJawn Agriculture farm in Westtown. I haven’t seen much happening there. What’s going on? — Pamela M.

Barfield will be opening the farm stand again by the end of the month. She operated the stand all of last summer and through the fall, her rep told me. Although she grew produce on only a few acres there last summer and fall, she plans to farm 64 acres this season.

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