9 new restaurants on the way, and Cafe Click opens for its second season

Philly’s recent restaurant boom continues. Added to a full slate of spring openings is word of a Mexican restaurant coming in Havertown, a Korean fried chicken eatery in Phoenixville, more Jewish delis in the burbs, and a second Brazilian steak house in King of Prussia.

But first: Cafe Click, the French-ish outdoor cafe from Stephen Starr, returned May 9 for its second season on the plaza of the Comcast Center at 1701 JFK Blvd. Sharing some thematic elements with Parc, Starr’s all-day bistro five blocks away on Rittenhouse Square, it is open weekdays only from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. through late summer. New menu items include tuna tartare, truffled white pizzette, and half of a chilled lobster with the quaintly named Marie Rose sauce (a combo of ketchup, mayo, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, and pepper).

The Comcast campus recently saw the openings of Karma Indian Cuisine and the Juice Pod in the concourse beneath the center. Di Bruno Bros. will change its stand into a sandwich concept called Focacceria in mid-May. Also, due in about a month, is Big Chicken, an eatery fronted by Shaquille O’Neal.

A block away in the concourse beneath the Comcast Technology Center, Marc Vetri is a few weeks from opening Pizzeria Salvy, a sit-down restaurant named in honor of his father, Sal.

Alice Chang and Shea Roggio’s Korean fried chicken operation, Soko Bag, which had a pop-up last year at Pizza Jawn in Manayunk, has secured a brick-and-mortar location in Phoenixville. They’re turning the former Sal’s Pizza Box at 95 Nutt Rd. into a spot featuring the combo of boneless fried chicken and beer. They will brew their own blueberry cider. Roggio says they will do a sports theme to make it reminiscent of the chicken-and-beer joints he remembers from living in South Korea. September is the target.

» READ MORE: 30 restaurants opening in Philadelphia this spring

A new branch of Al Pastor, the Exton Mexican restaurant from Justin Weathers and Joseph Monnich, will fill the shuttered Town Tap by Conshohocken Brewing Co. in Havertown (13 W. Benedict Ave.) this June or July. Highlights: festive, family-friendly, 100 seats inside and 100 more outside, 15 kinds of tacos, 12 beers on tap, three kinds of guacamole. Weathers and Monnich, who started their partnership in 2016 with Stove & Tap in Lansdale, now also have a Stove & Tap in West Chester and the Al Pastor in Exton, plus Revival Pizza Pub in Chester Springs, GBU (Good Bad and Ugly) in West Chester, DePaul’s Table in Ardmore, and the new Joey Chops in Malvern.

Jewish delis are coming to the northern suburbs. The Borscht Belt is expecting to open late this month in Village at Newtown South, near the Newtown Farmers Market, in Newtown Township, Bucks County. This deli, from Mike Dalewitz and chef Nick Liberato, started in 2021 in Stockton, N.J., but lost its location last year when the market around it closed. Meanwhile, a venerable name is expanding into Montgomery County: the Kibitz Room, the Cherry Hill institution, will occupy a new development in Montgomeryville, off Route 309 near Stump Road. (It’s behind that new Wawa.) This location is about a year off, said owner Brandon Parish, who said it would have double the seating of Cherry Hill. Also in deli world, Russ Cowan of Famous 4th Street says “late summer” for Radin’s, on the former site of Short Hills Deli in Cherry Hill.

» READ MORE: The region's best Jewish delis

King of Prussia is getting another Brazilian steak house: Gaucho’s Prime, due to open June 1 at 220 N. Gulph Rd., will replace the shuttered Ruth’s Chris. There’s a Fogo de Chão in the King of Prussia Town Center.

The former Community at 21st and Federal Streets, in what for decades was the Point Breeze shot-and-a-beer called Burg’s Lounge, has a new owner, chef Denise Gesek. She is planning a bar-restaurant called Insatiable for a late-June opening. Meanwhile, Gesek ordered the community fridge outside the restaurant removed. Members of South Philly Community Fridge are steering donors and users to its fridge and pantry at Broad Street and Castle Avenue and its pantry at 1542 S. Cleveland St. There also are the Mamatees fridge two blocks away at 22nd Street and Washington Avenue and the Homies Helping Homies fridge at 22nd and Cross Streets.

The long-vacant Irish Times at Second and Bainbridge Streets in Queen Village is getting a top-to-bottom makeover from new owner Charlie Collazo, who owns The Institute at 11th and Green Streets. Collazo, who said he does not have a name for it yet, is working around its unusual multilevel interior. Menu will be half vegan/vegetarian and the bar will be driven by cocktails and amari. He’s hoping for an October opening. (We old-timers remember the spot as the romantic Pyrenees, which ran from 1978 to 1994.)

Jeff Newman, a.k.a. Newman the Food Man, has a brick-and-mortar location for Hi-Lo, which started in Fishtown in late 2021 as a taco pop-up in what is now Gilda. He’s taking the former Bareburger at 1109 Walnut St. for a bar-restaurant with seating and a window, and he’s targeting fall.

Smitty’s Clam Bar in Somers Point, N.J., will indeed open for its 50th season by the bay. Day one will be May 11, when hours will be 4:30 to 9 p.m. daily except for Tuesday. Lunches will start Memorial Day weekend. Smitty’s future was thrown up in the air in 2021 when the owners of its marina location put the property up for sale.

Great progress reportedly is being made at Bake’n Bacon, which Justin Coleman is building out at the former Devil’s Den at 11th and Ellsworth Streets in South Philadelphia. In less than two months, it will be a brick-and-mortar adjunct to his food trucks, which are all about bacon, in sweet and savory forms.

Barcade’s location at 1326 Chestnut St., whose deal was inked in May 2022, is now targeting a fall opening. It’s been stuck in permitting limbo.