Author: Michael Klein

Fishtown residents and business owners Shannon Leocata Figueras and Justice Figueras will sell no wine before its time. This much is clear because LeoFigs, their winery and restaurant, has been “coming soon” for months at Frankford and Susquehanna Avenues.

Recently, the LeoFigs signs came down and a new one appeared in the window, showing a drawing of a cat wearing a space helmet while watching a rocket circling the moon.

Could it be? the neighbors buzzed. Might Rocket Cat Cafe, the scruffy but beloved coffee shop/zine shop/hangout that closed five years ago nearby, be revived in the space?

Nope. The sign was a ruse, Justice Figueras said. When anything opens in Fishtown, “everybody’s like, ‘Is it going to be another Rocket Cat?’ So we thought it was a little bit cheeky — maybe get us some awareness before we posted some jobs.”

LeoFigs — whose opening is sorta-kinda-definitely set for mid-December, probably — is now hiring for all positions in the front and back of the house, including executive chef.

The Rocket Cat sign, coming down soon, will also serve as LeoFigs’ first real post on its newly scrubbed Instagram account. “I basically erased all of our old [posts] because we went through a rebrand,” he said. “It was good timing for the Rocket Cat situation.” The original logo, designed by their children, has been subbed, as well.

“We definitely put the neighborhood in a tizzy,” said Shannon Figueras, an executive with Bacardi. “We didn’t realize everybody would get so excited, but we feel like we probably should say something.”

The tactic worked perhaps too well.

“We really can’t walk out on the sidewalk without somebody being like, ‘What’s going on?’” said Justice Figueras, a Jersey Shore-bred wine-business lifer, adding: “We didn’t think we could really offend anybody.”

Since the spring, months after it was first mentioned, LeoFigs’ concept has evolved substantially. The couple expanded their winemaking operation, including a recent trip to the Finger Lakes, where they purchased about three tons of grapes.

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Up front, the design has shifted from a simple host counter to a full working counter that will become a showpiece for making fresh pasta. They said they’re doubling down on scratch pastas, breads, and even some pastries.

Despite the café buzz the Rocket Cat ruse generated, LeoFigs will not be a morning destination. “I don’t think there’s a crowd for lunch — there are a million cafés and coffee shops over here,” Justice Figueras said.

Instead, the plan is to open in the late afternoon and focus on dinner service, with “medium” plates inspired by a trip from Barcelona to Sicily. “We almost want to be more of a food hall for wine,” he said.

Max’s Seafood Cafe, which brought lofty dining ambitions to down-to-earth Gloucester City, has changed hands after a quarter-century.

The new owners — Mike and Barb Williams, who previously ran the three Pudge’s sandwich shops still operating in the Pennsylvania suburbs, and entrepreneur Chris Widell — plan to open Tuesday as Pudge’s Pub. It will sport a far more accessible menu of steaks, hoagies, and bar food, as well as some of Max’s bestsellers, such as steamed clams, clams casino, and mussels in three sauces. A former Max’s chef is on board, as is the former bar manager.

But while change is inevitable, especially in the restaurant world, last week’s announcement failed to impress the Facebook crowd. No sooner had the partners swapped out Max’s logo for a jaunty sketch of a mustachioed Pudge on the profile page than the comments flew on the page of the news site 42 Freeway, based on its article about the transaction:

“Oh, my God! They’re not using ‘Max’s’ anymore!” “I’m guessing a joke?” “Change an iconic name?” “Such a classy-looking restaurant for a cartoon character logo and basically takeout food menu.” “Is this AI pulling [a] prank?”

The partners expressed frustration as moderator Mark Matthews tried to reason with the commenters. Marilyn Johnson, moderator of the South Jersey Food Scene page, did the same on her post.

“Give us a chance,” an exasperated Mike Williams told The Inquirer on Friday. Economic reality drove the decision to rebrand as Pudge’s. Max’s hasn’t made a profit in at least three years and foot traffic was low, Williams said.

Many commenters conceded that they hadn’t visited Max’s in a long time. “I don’t want to say we’re saving it, but we want to resurrect a place where all walks of life can come and have fun,” Williams said.

They are keeping the neon Max’s Cafe sign, which has cast a glow over the intersection of Hudson and Burlington Streets for decades. They applied a fresh coat of paint to the classic barroom, and are keeping the ornate wood-and-mirror bar, circa 1912, as it was.

The draft-beer list, which included high-brow specialties like Chimay, has been simplified to more standard offerings like Miller Lite, Stella, and Yards. (The fancier beers will be available in bottles.) Williams said they plan to host special events in the parking lot and are adding four TVs inside.

Mike Williams said he had a butcher prepare a custom cut of beef for the cheesesteaks. They’ll use rolls from Liscio’s, also a South Jersey business, since their previous supplier, Conshohocken Italian Bakery, closed last year.

Even the bar’s new focus on cheesesteaks sparked outrage from commenters who lamented that greater Gloucester was on the brink of Whiz overload. Two other shops are due to open soon just down the street: a barroom from Lillo’s (of Hainesport fame) at the former Thomas Murphy’s Pub, and Irishtown Steaks, from a former head cook at the well-regarded Donkey’s Place a few minutes away in Camden. In nearby West Collingswood Heights, Danny DiGiampietro of Angelo’s Pizzeria is planning to open a new eatery.

Pudge’s and Max’s histories

It’s not as if the Williamses are new to the game. The Pudge’s project is a return to their family’s roots. Pudge’s traces its history to Frank’s, the hoagie shop that a 21-year-old Frank Carbone opened at Wister Street and Chew Avenue in Germantown, near what was then La Salle College, after he got out of the service in the late 1950s.

Carbone renamed it Pudge’s — his childhood nickname — when he moved it to Whitpain Shopping Center in Blue Bell, Montgomery County, in 1972. His daughter, Barbara, and her husband, Mike Williams, took over Pudge’s after Carbone’s death in 2000. The Williamses opened locations in the Lansdale and Pottstown areas before selling their last location in October 2024; all three operate under the new owners, and Williams said he has rights to the name.

The Gloucester City bar opened in 1890 as a shoe store and became Leisinger’s Saloon in 1912, when German immigrant Joseph Fred Leisinger installed the bar. After Leisinger’s death in 1937, another German immigrant, Max Waterstradt, bought the business and named it Max’s Cafe, also a neighborhood taproom. By the late 1970s, Max’s had evolved into Max’s Seafood Cafe, known for simply prepared seafood. Time and deferred maintenance caught up with the building, and Max’s went dark in 1998.

In 2001, Tom Monahan — a partner in the nearby Chubby’s restaurant — bought Max’s, restored it, and reopened it with a premium menu whose entrees in its later years were priced in the high $30s. Monahan, who operated Max’s until last week’s sale, did not reply to a message seeking clarity on his restaurant’s gift certificates. Mike Williams and Widell said they would not honor them at Pudge’s.

By the weekend, as the Facebook crowd had moved on to a new tempest (was a new bank planned for Washington Township really necessary?), the partners were applying their final touches to the pub.

Asked how Pudge’s would set itself apart from other local hangouts, Mike Williams replied that an owner — he, his wife, or son Preston — would be on premises from opening till closing daily: “That’s the only way for quality control, and just being friendly — that is an art that is lost these days.”

Pudge’s Pub, 34 N. Burlington St., Gloucester City, N.J. Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Hours will be extended on select game days.

In East Asian folklore, the Jade Rabbit is a celestial figure known for compassion and hospitality. When a hungry goddess tested the kindness of animals, the rabbit offered itself as food. Moved by this selfless act, she granted it immortality, sending it to live on the moon.

There, the Jade Rabbit eternally mixes the elixirs of life for the gods — a symbol of generosity, sacrifice, and eternal service.

At Jade Rabbit, the cocktail bar that opened this week beneath Maison Lotus in Wayne, siblings Pearl and Paul Somboonsong are mixing their own elixirs — if not for the gods, then for, well, Main Liners.

In March, the Somboonsongs opened Maison Lotus, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant and all-day cafe at 175 Lancaster Ave., the former site of Margaret Kuo.

As they planned the two-story restaurant, they decided that the basement would be an ideal spot for a speakeasy-style bar as a passion project, alongside a banquet room where they’d host private events and mah-jongg games.

Pearl Somboonsong grew up on the Main Line, where her parents, Win and Sudita Somboonsong, created a string of restaurants, including Mikado Thai Pepper, Teikoku, Azie, and Blue Elephant.

After college, she lived in New York and Chicago, “and there was always a speakeasy scene,” she said. Philadelphia has one, too. But not so much on the Main Line, as she discovered when she moved back to join her brother in Win Hospitality, the family business.

There are stylish bars, she said, but “I was asking, ‘Why is there not really a place where I can have that same experience where the cocktails are really the focus?”

Of course, Jade Rabbit is licensed, unlike a true speakeasy. But it has the characteristic unmarked door leading down from Maison Lotus as well as a low-lit, low-key vibe for its eight bar seats plus 18 more at tables. Opening night was fully booked, and there are 30 on the waiting list for tonight, Pearl Somboonsong said. It’s only open Thursday and Friday for now; more days may be added if there is demand.

Bartender Curtis Daulerio and Win Hospitality beverage director Katrin Kanikkeberg set up the bar, whose cocktail menu is Vietnamese-inspired. For a drink called the Circle Jawn, they use a Porthole Infuser, a circular contraption invented for the Aviary, a seminal speakeasy-style bar in Chicago.

The Circle Jawn is meant to resemble a bowl of pho, so Daulerio loads the infuser with vermicelli, roasted carrots, basil, and spices such as star anise, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and coriander seeds. Then he pours Diplomatico rum, Pedro Ximenez sherry, and black walnut bitters into the porthole. The drink ($39 for two), which is poured atop a large ice cube, picks up new flavors and colors as it steeps.

Like many new bars, Jade Rabbit also has a FlavourBlaster, the device that creates oversize bubbles and smoke on top of a drink. “Of course, we play with fire and smoke and stuff, but I didn’t want it all to be gimmicky,” Pearl Somboonsong said. “At the end of the day, it has to be about class. The goal is an amazing, well-balanced cocktail.”

Jade Rabbit offers three options for reservations: There’s a $30 per-person deposit for a bar seat; the customer orders à la carte drinks and food, and the deposit is applied to the final bill. In the dining seats, there’s a $145 five-course food and cocktail pairing menu with hamachi, flower dumplings, Chilean sea bass, A5 Wagyu steak, and crystal dumplings filled with guava and strawberries — all unique to the lounge. The third option is a three-course cocktail progression, which covers any three cocktails for $65.

À la carte food includes bites such as Bangkok toast (brown sugar butter and bourbon creme anglaise atop milk bread), umami popcorn, and Japanese street corn, plus larger plates including the steak and sea bass.

Jade Rabbit, beneath Maison Lotus, 175 Lancaster Ave., Wayne, maison-lotus.com/jaderabbit. Hours from 5:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Reservations suggested, though walk-ins are allowed.