Your first look at the big, new Federal Donuts & Chicken shop in South Philadelphia
The new Federal Donuts & Chicken shop is the chain's largest yet, and has a kitchen for doughnut and chicken research and development.
Federal Donuts & Chicken’s largest location yet will open Thursday in South Philadelphia’s Whitman neighborhood, on the corner of Wolf and Swanson Streets near Columbus Boulevard.
On paper, it replaces the original location, a mile away in Pennsport, which closed in January after a little over 12 years. This new spot has 24 seats, at tables and a counter, and will be open initially from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.
The new location also includes an R&D kitchen, important since FedNuts is expanding by franchising. Two years ago, the founders, including Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook of Zahav, announced that had taken on private-equity investment in a deal that could grow the brand to 150 stores nationwide.
The gamble is paying off; a franchise location opened this week in Las Vegas.
From the March 7 opening till March 17, the new Wolf Street location will offer $1 hot coffee with the purchase of a cinnamon brown sugar, strawberry lavender, or cookies and cream doughnut between 7 and 11 a.m. The first 50 customers on opening day will also receive an exclusive T-shirt.
Through March 8 chainwide, FedNuts will offer a limited-release doughnut called Porter’s Peep, which puts milk chocolate glaze, marshmallow glaze ring, and blue and yellow sprinkles atop a classic spiced cake doughnut. It was designed by a 12-year-old Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia patient named Porter; $1 per doughnut will be donated to CHOP’s greatest area of need.
Besides doughnuts and coffee/espresso drinks, the Wolf Street menu includes a breakfast sandwich of steamed and fried egg with Cooper Sharp cheese, bacon, cherry pepper relish and a hand-battered chicken tender on a potato roll), a fig mascarpone fancy doughnut, and the complement of chicken.
The Wolf Street location, amid a longtime industrial and warehouse district near I-95 and blessed with ample on-street parking, seems poised for a food-driven metamorphosis. One local restaurant group is in talks to open a commissary nearby, a local bakery is eyeing another building for an expansion, and a developer is planning a shopping center across the street.