New bars where the lights are low | Let’s Eat

If the latest crop of bars and lounges is any indication, we may be seeing the grand finale of social distancing. Candlelight is in. Also this week, there’s been a shakeup at a Center City restaurant, South Jersey landmark the Pub is packing them in again, and a Bucks County restaurant has given up its vegetarian menu. Read on for a slate of news, including new doings at Picnic and a flashback to the splashiest restaurant ever in Port Richmond.

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Candlelit elegance seems to be in vogue at a new crop of bars. Maybe this return to intimacy is a sign that social distancing is over. Last weekend’s opening of Izzy’s in Ardmore and the imminent opening of Caletta in Fishtown are only part of this trend.

🍷Here are 11 lounges and bars in Philly you might enjoy — that is, if you can find them.

After 56 years, Michael Galasso has packed up his salad bowl and cooking pans — his Bucks County restaurant, Michael’s, has closed. He’s about to turn 85, and thinks he’s finally ready to retire. The tableside Caesar salad and steak Diane? Chef’s kiss. I dropped by on his final night.

🥩The Pub in Pennsauken, around since the 1950s, reopened Friday after a summertime hiatus. David Gelman, whose family owns this medieval monument of meat, said his staff served 750 dinners on that first knight, er, night.

The third annual Fishtown Falls Feastivale will pack more than 125 restaurants, breweries, and artisans along Frankford Avenue on Saturday, and Henry Savage explains this combo of family-friendly food festival and Frankford Hall’s Oktoberfest — which will see roughly 30,000 attendees.

Food trucks parked late at night along Girard Avenue have sparked controversy in Fishtown. Now, the Fishtown District and the city have put together an overnight market with six trucks in the lot near the Fillmore, serving food till 4 a.m. four nights a week.

Libertine has wrapped a six-year run at the Fairfield Inn & Suites at 13th and Spruce Streets, coinciding with last weekend’s retirement of chef Derek Davis (shown above) after a five-decade career that started at Hoagie City in Center City and included Apropos in the 1980s, along with a stellar run during Manayunk’s glory days in the 1990s/early 2000s (Sonoma, Derek’s, Kansas City Prime, Arroyo Grille, Carmella’s, River City Diner, Fish on Main).

The lights will not be out for long, as restaurateurs Felicia Wilson and chef Darryl Harmon of Amina and BlackHen in Old City will redecorate and open the 80-seat bistro on Friday as Fia, with an Afro-Latin menu. (Sample dishes: seafood tower, “dressed-in-pink” deviled eggs for $9; shrimp ceviche for $20; wood-fired grilled oysters for $18; crab potpie bisque for $18; crab cake pops for $22; and braised Caribbean oxtails with Jimmy Red grits for $46). At the start, Fia will be open from 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 5-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Weekend brunch will follow.

Wilson and Harmon (below) have two more on the way: the nearly 260-seat Avana, opening by late October in the east tower of Park Towne Place on the Parkway, and the 118-seat Amina Ocean, targeting late spring or early summer at 41st and Market Streets.

Primary Plant Based, chef Mark McKinney’s vegan BYOB on Girard Avenue near Second Street, has announced that it is closing after three years. “Saturday the 28th, we’ll have a little going-away party,” McKinney wrote on Instagram. “Let’s call it a celebration of life. Probably from 3-7 or so. This will be free, BUT…if you’d like to leave a tip/donation to help tidy up payroll and contribute to our massive debt, back rent, and incoming legal issues, yes, please.”

Picnic, the outdoor-vibe restaurant/wine shop in Kensington from Defined Hospitality that opened in July, has made some changes. In sum: It’s added all-day service on Saturday and Sunday from noon-10 p.m.; there are now seats at the bar, and with that, happy hour is 5-6 p.m. Monday-Thursday with $1.50 oysters, $5 draft beers, and $9 cocktails and wines by the glass. Takeout service is now offered Sunday-Thursday, and, perhaps the biggest news of all, the QR code ordering has given way to full service.

Spread Bagelry’s Newtown Square location. The fast-spreading Spread Bagelry is keeping the wood-fired oven burning later in the day at its new location in Newtown Square’s Ellis Preserve development.

It has added a menu of focaccia sandwiches and corresponding salads (priced lower), served 4-8 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. Shown below is the fried eggplant sandwich ($18), with olive tapenade, baby arugula, roasted red peppers, and garlic aioli. Spread also sells sliced focaccia (rosemary or plain) with dips: whipped ricotta, whipped feta, and pimento ($10 each, or a flight of dips for $14).

This location also has a tie-in with La Colombe Coffee; the dessert offerings include affogato, plus fried bagel holes. There’s plenty of seating indoors, as well as the landscaped common patio outside.

Spread Bagelry, 102 Squire Dr, Newtown Square. Hours: 7 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday.

Federal Donuts & Chicken. The first suburban brick-and-mortar location will open at 7 a.m. Friday at 232 Radnor-Chester Rd. in Radnor, the former HipCityVeg. More locations are on their way under franchise operators: 4021 Welsh Rd. in Willow Grove (a former Jamba Juice at Willow Grove Pointe); 200 Ridge Pike in Conshohocken (next to Saladworks in Plymouth Square Shopping Center); and Marlton Square on Route 73 in Marlton.

Brynn Bradley Cheesesteaks. The Woodbury location has closed after four years as it’s planning to relocate to 1006 Mantua Pike (College Square Plaza on Route 45) in Woodbury Heights.

Guru’s Indian Cuisine’s move to a vegetarian menu was not well-received. The butter chicken is back at the Bucks County bar-restaurant and so are the customers.

Human Robot’s satellite space at Schuylkill Banks (2401 Walnut St.) will be open and serving its beer lineup on Monday nights through Oct. 28, while vermouth specialist Fell to Earth of East Falls will run a vermouth bar; winery Vox Vineti of Christiana, Pa., will offer wines; and Little Fish of Bella Vista will serve a rotating menu of small bites. The weekly pop-up, running 5-9 p.m., is pay as you go.

The chefs from South Philly’s Paffuto — Daniel Griffiths, Jake Loeffler, and Sam Kalkut — will join Eric Leveillee, executive chef at Lacroix at the Rittenhouse, for a one-time multi-course dinner at the Rittenhouse Square restaurant on Oct. 6. Three limited seatings, with only 10 guests per turn, will start at 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30 p.m. at $125pp plus tax and tip, with an optional beverage pairing available. Reservations via Lacroix’s Resy page.

East Passyunk Avenue will run First Friday art walks starting Oct. 4 from 5 to 9 p.m. between the 1300 and 1900 blocks of East Passyunk with various participating businesses. Subsequent outings will be Nov. 1 and Dec. 6.

Wine writer Marnie Old has found a good value for your cabernet sauvignon snobs.

Why might your cup of coffee be more expensive? Blame the heat and drought in Brazil and Vietnam.

Wawa recently opened its first store in central Pennsylvania, aka “Sheetz country.” What kind of creature is Wawa’s mascot, Wally?

A) a goose

B) a turtle

C) a walrus

D) a ruffed grouse

Find out if you know the answer.

My wife and I moved back to Philly six years ago after 25 years in New Jersey to raise a family. Since our return, we have been wracking our brains about the name of a restaurant we ate at before we were married, in the late ’80s maybe early ’90s. It was a steakhouse located on Delaware Avenue in a warehouse building — lots of exposed brick, high ceilings and black-and-white photos of old Hollywood legends. Know what it was? — Michael and Bonnie K.

That was Babe’s, which was in Imperial Plaza (3400 Aramingo Ave.) from 1988 till 1992. Developer Frederick “Babe” Kozlowski created the grand steakhouse with live music as an ode to his native Port Richmond. One newspaper columnist at the time said his tab for a steak dinner for two, including drinks and tip, was a princely $78.58. That’s $209.10 in 2024 dollars — now a relative bargain. (For more background, I clipped you a Jim Quinn column from Inquirer Magazine.) The Babe’s space, incidentally, is now an IHOP.

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