How a Cambodian noodle shop became one of Philly’s most impossible reservations
At Mawn, a month's worth of reservations — 1,300 seats — are booked within minutes of release on the first day of each month.
When Mawn opened its reservations for the month of December on Nov. 1, 1,200 seats were booked almost instantly. “Crazy,” chef-owner Phila Lorn, 38, said, as he scrolled through the iPad Mawn uses for bookings. “All of the four tops were booked within one minute.” It wasn’t a fluke. When reservations opened up the following month, for January, 1,300 diners booked within four minutes.
Mawn, which opened in March 2023 in the former home of Kalaya in Bella Vista, has become, after Royal Sushi and Izakaya, one of the hardest reservations to nab in Philly. “Getting a reservation is like trying to buy tickets to see my favorite band, System of a Down,” said Delicious City podcast host and influencer Dave Wesolowski, whose reservation I managed to slip into Mawn on last month. “I experience the same pain. On the first of the month at noon, reservations go live. If your fingers don’t move fast enough, you will witness all the good seating times evaporate within minutes, leaving only a 4 p.m. reservation, which will also get booked.”
What brings people to Mawn? Certainly the food, which is very, very good. Some of my recent favorites include the Mawn noodle soup, slick with schmaltz and sweetened with parsnips, their excellent fish caramel-lacquered fried chicken, and their Cambodian take on a chili dog, which ladles prahok and wild boar over a hot dog.
It takes more than excellent food to make a little BYOB impossible to get into. Especially one that is a mom-and-pop shop, without public relations or a budget to even consider it. And Mawn is literally a mom and pop — they have a 3-year-old son named Otis. Nor is Mawn adorned with the trappings of fine dining. The wine glasses are tumblers. Soups are served in melamine bowls. Fried chicken comes in a plastic basket lined with parchment paper. And the spicy melon salad arrives in one of those wooden bowls from the Pizza Hut salad bar in the ‘90s.
“It’s not just that the food is bangin’,” Phila said. “It’s a small restaurant. That’s why we’re always busy. When you get a seat, it’s rewarding.” The confines of the space — which Phila says “has good juju” — perpetuate the exclusivity.
Mawn releases all of its reservations for a given month at once, on the first day of the preceding month. There are 28 seats at Phila and his wife Rachel’s BYOB, where on an average night, the couple serves 92 to 95 covers (restaurant speak for an individual diner). For dinner, none of the seats are held for walk-ins, meaning the entire restaurant — which is open Wednesday through Saturday — can be booked out a month at a time. The couple’s forthcoming seafood-focused restaurant Sao, set to open next year on East Passyunk, will be not much larger, at 30 seats.
Mawn wasn’t supposed to be what it is today. “Our original concept was to be Puck and See (Khmer for “eat and drink”) — a Southeast Asian food hall with a bottle shop,” said Rachel, 39. The concept evolved to become a Cambodian noodle shop with, as the website puts it, no rules.
“One of my earliest memories is being in a stroller coming up Ninth Street and smelling the almond extract, most likely wafting from Isgro’s,” Phila said. “Back then, more shops sold pastries and doughnuts. My mom used to send my dad on errands to Sarcone’s for their bread to dip with the curry she’d make. That curry is now the curry we use in our khao soi.”
Mawn is in the middle of switching reservation platforms from Tock to OpenTable, but the system of opening up reservations on the first of each month for the following month will remain. If your heart is set on dinner, “there’s also a technique for people to snag a reservation through cancellations,” Phila said.
“Reminder emails go out two days prior to the reservation and confirmation texts go out the day before at 12 p.m., so sometimes we see cancellations then. There’s a notify option which works too, but they go so fast, as soon as a spot opens up,” Rachel said. “It will automatically send notifications to the waiting list but it’s a first come first serve, so basically anyone meeting the time criteria will get the email. Some of our regulars tell me they just stalk the reservations daily.”
What if family members are the ones trying to score a reservation? “They’re super respectful of the reservation system,” Phila said. They don’t try to pull any strings. And my mom is here every Tuesday making soups and sauces with me.”
“I will get my mom a reservation because she should have one,” Rachel said. “She comes in once a month. She understands it. She’ll come in for lunch if there’s nothing available.”
In fact, lunch is the cheat code for everyone to get into Mawn, not just blood relations: Lunch, which runs from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, is walk-in only. Get there early, or on the later side, and you’re likely to land a seat.
“I can’t believe Mawn’s success,” Rachel said. “I know we have something good and I believe in it, but I’m still shocked every day.”
“People say, ‘Isn’t it crazy how successful it is?’ Phila said. “They ask, ‘Did you know it would be?’ But I always knew. For me, it’s do or die. I don’t want to sound cocky, but I expected it — and the next jawn, too!”