If you are one of those who were patiently waiting for this coffee shop to open in Garden Court Plaza on the 4700 block of Pine Street, the wait is finally over. Kensington-based coffee shop, ReAnimator Coffee, opened its West Philly location this past weekend. The shop is run by co-founders Mark Capriotti and Mark Corpus, who had been supplying Mariposa Food Co-op with bulk coffee beans for a while and also operate cafes in Fishtown and the Graduate Hospital neighborhood. You can read more about them in our earlier post here.  Continue Reading

Rosa’s Fresh Pizza, the no-frills dollar-slice pizza shop, opened its second location this month on 40th between Ludlow and Market. Rosa’s is the brainchild of businessman Mason Wartman, whose claim to fame is appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show to talk about his restaurant’s wall of pay-it-forward post-it notes. Each post-it represents a slice of pizza purchased by someone to feed the city’s homeless population, and anyone who can’t afford to buy food for themselves can take a post-it off of the wall and trade it for a slice at the counter.

Rosa’s original location, in Center City near Jefferson Hospital at 11th and Ludlow, serves free slices to 50-100 customers a day. A person behind the counter at the new University City location who declined to give his name said that they had “some” people taking advantage of the free slices, but not as many as 30 or 40. “I guess people just haven’t heard yet,” he explained.  Continue Reading

Here’s a little update on ReAnimator Coffee‘s West Philly location, which is in the works in Garden Court Plaza on the 4700 block of Pine Street. The popular Kensington/Fishtown coffee shop was expected to open its West Philly location in mid-November, according to the owners, but the new space renovation somehow stalled at the end of last year, and still hasn’t finished.

The good news is that the new shop set up seems to have sped up in the last few weeks. We saw a counter and other furniture finally being installed earlier this month. So, according to a worker, the shop is now expected to open by the end of March. We’ll keep you posted.

In 2016, we reported on the possibility that Loco Pez, the cash-only Fishtown taqueria, was opening a new location at 47th and Baltimore, in the spot that the Carrot Cake Man used to occupy in the old Montrose building. What ever happened to that plan? According to a local realtor’s website, Loco Pez signed a lease for the space in early 2016, but since then progress has been erratic.

For many months there was little to no activity, then eventually various construction permits for a sit-down restaurant appeared in the window, but construction seemed to stall as of late last Autumn. The location’s liquor license is in “safekeeping” status, which means that it’s still attached to that location, but not currently active. Only in the last few weeks have local residents reported renewed activity inside the space.  Continue Reading

Here’s some exciting news from Philly Homebrew Outlet (PHO). The local shop, which has locations in Kensington and West Philly, has recently expanded to New Jersey, where they have also started offering free classes on Thursdays. But that’s not all. Now their classes have their own Facebook event pages with more information instead of general posts on their Facebook/Twitter pages. As of now events will be published a week prior to the event date.

Philly Homebrew Outlet will continue to have all classes listed on their website calendar. You can check it out here. This month at PHO West, located at 1314 S. 47th St., you can learn Beer Brewing 101 and how to make ginger beer, mead, kombucha champagne, soap and more.  Continue Reading

Second Fridays on Lancaster Avenue returns this week, and in addition to live music, art shows, film screenings, and community events will now also include a market! Join your friends and neighbors on Friday, Jan. 12, from 4-8 p.m. at The Bank (3750 Lancaster Ave) for the West Side Market featuring a dozen of local food, beverage and craft vendors, music, and Friday night fun. The market will return to The Bank every second Friday.

For more information and updates, check out the Lancaster Avenue Philly website and Facebook page.