Two West Philly food start-ups are joining forces to spread the love this Valentine’s Day. Red Fox Gourmet and Smackaroons, both operating out of the Culinary Center on S. 48th Street, have just launched “Love Me…I’m Local,” a campaign celebrating the collective of emerging artisan food entrepreneurs in the Philadelphia area. Their first collaboration and product offering is a Valentine’s Day Gift Suite featuring gourmet treats.

Smackaroons produces dairy and preservative free artisanal Coconut Delights and currently has over 60 retail partners in the Greater Philadelphia and Delaware Valley Regions. Red Fox Gourmet is a snack company focused on making wholesome snacks with no artificial ingredients or preservatives. Its owner and head chef, Sarah Merrick, says that she and Claudia Baudo, the owner of Smackaroons, are thrilled to be part of this campaign.  Continue Reading

Photo from Philadelphia LISC blog.

A great neighborhood beautification project is underway in Mantua. Initiated by local residents and supported by community leaders and organizations, the Mantua Greenway project is an effort to transform an overgrown and littered strip of land on Mantua Avenue, adjacent to the Amtrak railway, into a green space, reports the Philadelphia LISC blog.

Lifetime Mantua resident Bessie Washington, who lives across the street from the lot, started a small garden there in 2011 in memory of her mother. The planting of the first few flowers and plants has blossomed into a grassroots cooperation, resulting in a large neighborhood revitalization campaign to create a green space and build a walking and biking trail. Thanks to support from the Philadelphia LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), the project also received funding.

“In 2013, the William Penn Foundation provided $200,000 for concept design and early stage planning, and this past October the neighborhood was awarded $150,000 by the state for design, engineering, and partial construction of the greenway. The path will eventually connect to the city’s Schuylkill Trail system, and will boast trees, murals and art installations,” according to the LISC blog post on the project.

Read more about this and other Mantua revitalization efforts here.

25-year-old Ashjakia Washington and 69-year-old Otero Guillermo, who were reported missing last week from their homes in West Philadelphia, have been found and are in good condition, according to police. Washington, from the 5500 block of Chancellor Street, went missing on Jan. 22 and Guillermo went missing from his residence on the 4800 block of Pine Street.

Washington had been reported missing before – in April 2014, according to police.

Here’s a chance to better understand an African immigrant’s experience in West Philly. Asali Solomon will talk about her coming-of-age (in West Philadelphia) novel Disgruntled at the book launch event this Tuesday (Feb. 3) at the Penn Book Center (130 S. 34th St.).

Called a “masterful writer” in a recent review of Disgruntled by the Los Angeles Times (great review), Solomon invites readers into the journey of protagonist Kenya Curtis as she navigates childhood in West Philadelphia. We meet Kenya as a fourth grader at Henry C. Lea School where she tries to fit in but is confronted with her and her family’s Afrocentric identity and we follow her through adolescence and onto a private school in the suburbs as she continues to try to figure out her place in the larger scheme of things.

Disgruntled is partly autobiographical. Solomon, an English professor at Haverford College, was born and raised in West Philadelphia. She is also the author of the short story collection Get Down.

The event starts at 6:30 p.m. with a reception, followed by Solomon’s talk starting at 7:00 p.m.

We’re happy to pass along some recent news from the West Philly food and restaurant world.

Renovations Underway at Rx The Farmacy

(Left to right): Danielle Coulter, Ross Scofield, and Tim Blair.

Some Spruce Hill residents and Rx The Farmacy (Facebook page) fans may have noticed that the restaurant has been closed for several days, so we got in touch with one of the owners, Ross Scofield, to see what’s going on. Turns out they are doing renovations to the kitchen. “A lot of things/equipment in the kitchen were left over from Rx,” Ross explains. ” Now that the Farm is on a steady track, we are taking the opportunity to update our little cooking space.”

Ross and his partners, Danielle Coulter and Tim Blair, who now also manage the recently opened The Barn on Baltimore, are taking the opportunity to renovate the kitchen during the slower winter season. Ross also shared some of his plans for the busy spring season.

“Spring time is a busy time for The Farmacy with UPenn having graduation and the neighborhood coming out for the nice weather. I want to have a new outside seating arrangement in place. The Farm needs a nice, big sign out front. New plates, flatware, and glasses are all needed. The kitchen also needs to be “repositioned” to handle the volume of brunch service,” Ross wrote us in an email.  Continue Reading

University City High School site purchased by Drexel (Click to enlarge).

Demolition of the former University City High School building is scheduled to begin in late February, but it is still unclear what Drexel University, which purchased the site from the school district last year, and their partner, Wexford, plan to do with the site.

Drexel had originally indicated that it hoped to build, among other things, a new public school on the site, which would help ease the sting felt by local residents from losing the high school and Charles Drew Elementary, which sat on the same 14-acre site. Demolition of Drew started earlier this month, and the Walnut Center has already been demolished.

“We are continuing our efforts to engage the community on the vision and plans to transform this site,” said Drexel spokesperson Niki Gianakaris.

She said the university plans to create a “mixed-use environment where the community and private sector will come together in a work, live and play environment.”

Charles Drew Elementary demolition underway (Photo by Marina Krikorian).

Demolition is expected to be complete later this year, she said, adding that plans for the site had not been finalized.

As part of its bid to buy the property from the School District of Philadelphia last February, Drexel presented a plan during a public meeting that included an enlarged Powel Elementary School and a middle school on the site.

The plan also included residential housing and retail space.

The plan met with some skepticism among residents of the Mantua neighborhood, where many University City High School students lived. Several Powelton Village neighborhood residents who attended that meeting last February voiced approval of the possible expansion of Powel Elementary.

– Mike Lyons