Category: Food

The long-awaited revival of Cobbs Creek Golf Course on the edge of West Philadelphia is taking shape not just on the fairways, but at the table.

Little Horse Tavern — a full-service restaurant, bar, and event space named in honor of Charlie “Little Horse” Sifford, the Black golfer who led the integration of the PGA tournament in the 1960s — opens Monday. The Fitler Club and Strother Enterprises are overseeing it.

The tavern, in a new building on Lansdowne Avenue called the Lincoln Financial Center, is next to a heated, 68-bay driving range, similar to a Topgolf. (Buckets of balls start at $10.) Nearby is a nine-hole short course designed for beginners and families, and — expected to open in 2027 — the renovated 18-hole championship-level course known as the Olde Course.

All told, the $180 million effort aims to transform Cobbs Creek into a premier public golf destination. The club, founded in 1916, offered access to players when the game was largely off-limits to anyone but white men who could afford memberships at private clubs.

Cobbs Creek was Sifford’s home course in the 1950s. Sifford — who got his nickname because of the horse pendant he wore — went on to win two PGA Tour events and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2006; he died in 2015 at age 92.

The course fell into disrepair in the 2000s and was closed in 2020. Shortly after, “a group of people who loved Cobbs Creek started asking, ‘What if this could be Philadelphia’s Bethpage Black?’” said Fitler Club president Jacob Smith, referring to the celebrated public course on Long Island that hosted the 2025 Ryder Cup.

That idea grew into the Cobbs Creek Foundation, which raised money and secured partnerships with Troon, the large golf-management company, and the Tiger Woods Foundation, which operates the adjacent TGR Learning Lab, aimed at teaching the game to schoolchildren.

In addition to its public dining room and bar, there’s a private event space upstairs that can host up to 200 people.

The tavern is decorated with murals; one depicts Sifford and fellow local sports figures Johnny McDermott, Dawn Staley, Kobe Bryant, and Wilt Chamberlain.

Fitler manager Clancy Smith oversees the restaurant as food and beverage director. Chef Adam Carson is putting out a something-for-everyone mix in his all-day menu, which starts at noon.

There are tater tots, a basket of chicken tenders and onion rings, and wings (choice of six sauces). Sandwiches, accompanied by tots, onion rings, salad, or fries, include a double smash burger, turkey club, fried chicken, and truffle chicken salad.

He’s also aiming a bit higher with esquites guacamole; huarache pizza; yellowfin tuna ceviche dressed in leche de tigre and avocado mousse; and a mixed green salad including fennel, radish, compressed apple, golden raisins, Cabot clothbound cheddar, sunflower brittle, and lemon vinaigrette. Top price is $20 for the cheesesteak. (Michael Franco, Fitler’s vice president of operations, says he expects to lower it to $18 once beef prices drop.)

There’s a full bar, including beer, wine, and nine cocktails. Rose Is a Rose, named after Sifford’s wife, is a floral spritz featuring gin, honey, lemon, sparkling rose wine, and a dash of rose water, and it’s garnished with an expressed lemon twist and dehydrated rose buds.

Fitler’s involvement grew out of its interest in projects with civic impact. Though best known as a members-only club in Center City, Fitler wants to expand its hospitality expertise beyond its walls.

“We look for opportunities where we can contribute something meaningful to the city,” said Smith, whose golf handicap is 13. “This was at the top of the list.”

For Strother Enterprises, a family-run food service company that began as a catering business in West Philadelphia, the connection is deeply personal. Robert A. Strother and Natasha Strother Lassiter are first cousins whose fathers — Ernest Strother and Robert Strother Jr. — worked as certified caddies at Cobbs Creek when they were teenagers.

“This was one of their first jobs,” Strother said. “They carried bags here all day, multiple rounds a day. Cobbs Creek was part of their upbringing.”

Lassiter said returning to the course as partners in its rebirth brings the family’s story full circle. “Being from West Philly, seeing this space restored, and being able to contribute to it in a meaningful way — it’s emotional,” she said. “This isn’t just another project for us.”

Strother manages day-to-day operations and oversees the after-school snack program at the TGR Learning Lab.

“This project isn’t just about hospitality,” Lassiter said. “It’s about community, education, and access.”

Little Horse Tavern, 7403 Lansdowne Ave., 267-900-3740, cobbscreekgolf.org. Initial hours: noon to 8 p.m. daily.

As the health inspector left Cafe Michelangelo in the Far Northeast last week, she affixed a “cease operations” sticker to the front door, ordering the restaurant to close for at least 48 hours.

Co-owner Giuliano Verrecchia got an idea.

He would come clean.

Chastened by the report’s findings and mindful of his restaurant’s previous dodgy health inspections this year, Verrecchia decided to go public and explain all 16 violations, one by one.

This would be a bold, uncommon strategy. Typically, as word of a shutdown spreads through social media, restaurateurs play defense while users pillory the establishment.

“I wanted to put my side out there and be transparent,” Verrecchia said, adding that he considered some of the cited issues “a bit misleading.” He and his manager, Danielle Runner, printed out the inspection report, added commentary, and posted it to Michelangelo’s Facebook page on Dec. 4, the day after the shutdown.

Addressed to “all of our amazing customers,” the post on Michelangelo’s profile paired the exact wording of the health report’s violations with Verrecchia’s own explanation (and redress or occasional rebuttal). He detailed 16 violations, including “peeling paint observed on walls in one of the women’s restroom areas” (“Bathrooms and storage areas were repainted yesterday,” he explained) and “ice build-up observed in the first-floor walk-in cooler unit” (“removed ice build-up,” he wrote).

Reaction to the post was mostly positive. Customers replied with words of support. Some commenters — several of whom identified as food-service industry workers — downplayed the inspector’s finding, describing them as minor.

(In a Facebook post earlier that day, the restaurant described the violations as “non-hazardous,” which was not entirely accurate.)

On Friday, Dec. 5, Michelangelo passed its reinspection, paid a $315 fee, and prepared to reopen. Verrecchia held his breath. Would the public respect his attempt at transparency?

A Northeast Philly staple

In 1992, brothers Michael and Angelo DiSandro combined their names to open a family-friendly Italian restaurant, complete with bocce courts and room for 250 guests, in a Somerton strip center. By Northeast Philadelphia standards, Cafe Michelangelo was years ahead of its time, serving espresso and brick-oven pizza. Angelo DiSandro died in 2012, and Michael has stepped aside from the day-to-day operation.

Verrecchia, 56, a nephew, oversees the restaurant, which has a bar in a rear dining room as well as a newer second bar on a covered, heated patio. There’s live music at least three days a week. Michelangelo’s business, like that at many older restaurants, hasn’t been the same since the pandemic. Rising food prices and labor costs have cut margins, and competition has become keener. Customers can get a world of cuisine delivered via apps.

To boost traffic, Verrecchia offers a $15 lunch buffet Tuesday to Friday with two pastas, two proteins, salads, and pizza. Over dinner, the calamari, the parm dishes, and pizzas still move, but he said his customers are cautious about spending. He still sells bigger-ticket items — steak, rack of lamb, whole fish — “but I’m not charging you $45,” Verrecchia said. “I’m charging you $37 and I’m not making money on it, but if you want a steak and the kid wants pizza? You got a home run.”

The aftermath

Michelangelo reopened the same day it passed its reinspection. The phone rang over the weekend. It was a group of teachers canceling their large annual party. Then another big order fell through.

Neither cited a reason. Business was down about 25% on Friday, the restaurant’s first day back, and remained soft Saturday. There was a slight improvement Sunday. The restaurant is closed Mondays. Tuesday was slow again, which Verrecchia partly attributed to cold weather. He said it was too soon to tell what was driving this.

Timeline of inspections

In interviews, Verrecchia said he acknowledged that some of the inspector’s findings required attention, but added: “I don’t think those issues put customers in jeopardy.”

“You as a layman read what they wrote and you get scared,” he said. “I wanted to explain what’s really meant.”

He cited rules about labeling containers as an example. “If [the inspector comes in] at 11:30 [a.m.] and my guys are prepping, some things won’t have labels because they have to open them up,” he said.

Verrecchia said he was cited for some issues that had been addressed previously, including cracked floors observed in the kitchen preparation area. “I had already fixed it and showed her,” he said. The report called out a chest freezer that was not commercial-grade. “I fixed that, too, but it still showed up again as if nothing had been done.”

“She made some valid observations,” he said. “I’m not denying that. But the wording in those reports can sound scarier than it really is if people don’t understand the terminology.”

But given its inspections in 2025, Cafe Michelangelo’s record showed mounting problems.

This also was not the restaurant’s first involuntary closure. In February 2023, an inspector cited repeated violations, including improper food labeling, missing temperature controls, rodent activity, improper food storage, and sanitation problems such as grease on walls near the hood, food debris and mouse droppings in the basement, damaged flooring, and missing wall tiles. The restaurant also was cited for using plastic crates to elevate beverages in the takeout area.

Cafe Michelangelo was allowed to reopen four days after that 2023 reinspection, and a follow-up two months later found no serious violations.

At the next inspection, Feb. 27, 2025, four risk-factor violations were noted: missing handwashing supplies, a dirty ice machine, missing date-marking, and unlabeled chemicals. All were corrected on site.

By Sept. 11, the violation count had risen to six and included flies throughout the facility, shellfish storage and record-keeping problems, and significant structural and equipment issues. The Health Department ordered a reinspection.

On Oct. 29, many of the same issues appeared again as repeat violations, and a certified food-safety manager was not on-site at the start of the inspection.

On Dec. 3, the inspector pointed out unsafe cooling of salads and onions, along with unresolved pest, handwashing, and facility problems — all what are deemed “imminent health hazards.” She also logged six risk-factor violations, which include any violation that increases the likelihood of foodborne illness; three of them were repeats. Two and a half hours after the inspector walked in, Michelangelo was shut down.

Corrections and changes

Verrecchia said the inspection issues were a wake-up call. He said he has tightened oversight throughout the restaurant, which employs about 30 people.

“I’m on it every single night now,” he said. “I’m re-educating my team. I’ve got to be more diligent. If I [mess] up, I admit it. I [messed] up. I’m human.”

He is now conducting mock inspections at the end of the day. “I walk through everything, write up what’s wrong, and then go over it with the staff in the morning,” he said.

He also has begun purchasing new equipment, including wall-mounted metal shelving and fruit-fly traps where required.

Verrecchia said he is standing by his decision to go public.

“If I didn’t think it was right, I wouldn’t have done it,” he said. “I can’t afford to shut down again — and I’m not going to.”

The door of Banshee at 16th and South Streets will be unlocked Thursday, welcoming patrons for crispy onion tarts, chicory salad, and a saucy Spanish mackerel dish you can mop up with house-made sourdough. They can then polish it all off with a sip of draft wine or a sesame- and pineapple-laced whiskey sour.

The cozy, modern American bistro is a refined addition to the Graduate Hospital neighborhood. And although two of its backers will be familiar to followers of Philly’s restaurant scene, Banshee marks a clear break from the Asian-inspired street food and graffitied airs that defined their earlier work.

Shawn Darragh and Ben Puchowitz, who founded Cheu Noodle Bar (2013), Cheu Fishtown (2017), Bing Bing Dim Sum (2015), and Nunu (2018), have brought on two key former employees as partners: twin brothers Kyle and Bryan Donovan, 34.

Kyle Donovan — who started at the original Cheu near 10th and Locust and later managed Bing Bing on East Passyunk until it closed in 2024 — is Banshee’s general manager, overseeing 12 walk-in-only bar seats and about three dozen seats in the dining room.

Banshee executive chef Bryan Donovan was opening sous chef under Puchowitz at Cheu Fishtown before he went on to cook at Sqirl in Los Angeles and Contra, Wildair, and the Four Horsemen in New York City.

Darragh and Puchowitz, now in their early 40s, have moved on from the day-to-day of restaurant work. Darragh, the front-of-the-house/marketing guy, runs a construction company. Puchowitz — who as a 23-year-old ran the kitchen at the late, great Rittenhouse BYOB Matyson — works in real estate.

“It’s fair to say we’re all grown up now,” Darragh told me. “We’re trying to carry over that neighborhood spirit but take it a step further — maybe a little more refined but still fun.”

The visual shift, not only from their former restaurants but also from the building’s previous occupant, Tio Flores, is obvious. Stokes Architecture + Design created a warm, Scandinavian-inspired space with natural woods, curtains, table lamps, pendant lights, and a mushroom-wood accent wall. The up-lit bar anchors the room.

Banshee was originally planned for the former Bing Bing space on East Passyunk Avenue at 12th Street, but that deal fell through. Chefs Biff Gottehrer and Kenjiro Omori are renovating it for a new restaurant called Tako Taco.

Mediterranean, Basque, and modern American flavors

Don’t expect ramens or dumplings at Banshee. The menu leans Mediterranean/Basque — chef-driven but not inaccessible. Premium ingredients include Berkshire pork collar ($25) and Lady Edison ham ($17) with persimmon and fromage blanc. The center-of-the-table dish is a half chicken ($39) with pickled peppers and buttery Marcona almonds.

Vegetables take center stage: braised leeks with boquerones, pepitas, and Comté ($14); grilled Kyoto carrot with txakoli sabayon ($15); and a chicory salad with dijonnaise, pear, and nutty, creamy Midnight Moon cheese ($15). Fermentation-driven umami shows up in red kuri rice with koji butter and nori, as well as a winter citrus salad finished with brown butter, pine nuts, and umeboshi. About half the menu is vegetarian, and five dishes are vegan or easily made vegan.

The tarte flambée ($15) is one of the most distinctive dishes on the menu. It starts with a yeasted semolina dough that’s rolled through a pasta sheeter, cut into squares, and baked on olive oil-lined sheet trays. It’s topped with smoked crème fraîche, caramelized onions, raw onions, maitake mushrooms, chives, and hot honey, and finished with a leek-and-parsley powder made from dehydrated leek scraps. Crispy and bold, “it’s layered onion flavor all the way through,” Bryan Donovan said.

A dill mignonette brightens the Barnstable oysters ($22). Hamachi crudo ($18) is sliced thick to highlight the fish’s natural fat and paired with a bright, acidic sauce made from minced peppers, passion fruit puree, shio koji, and white verjus. “The sauce actually came first, and then we tailored the fish to it,” Donovan said.

A larger plate of Spanish mackerel ($24) is served over grilled Brussels sprout leaves tossed in a smoked clam emulsion with thyme and tamari, finished with olive oil tapenade and pickled golden raisins.

“We’ll change vegetables seasonally and add more snacky, fried, and skewer-style items as we settle in,” Donovan said. “Spontaneity and experimentation are part of the spirit of the place.”

There’s a baked Alaska (not done tableside) and a butterscotch Krimpet filled with boysenberry jam for dessert.

Check average is projected at $70 to $75 per person for two to three dishes and one drink.

The Banshee partners brought in lead bartender Mary Wood to build the cocktail program, working alongside assistant manager Madeline Anneli. “None of us are professional bartenders, so we wanted real expertise on cocktails,” Kyle Donovan said.

Wood’s list draws from home-cooking influences and ingredients already used in the kitchen. The Dirty Banshee ($16) — olive oil-infused vodka, garlic fino, and blue cheese olive — leans deeply savory. Beet imbues the Crowd Work ($15), a sparkling gin cocktail with lemon and quinine. The bar also offers low-ABV drinks, nonalcoholic options, fermentation elements such as tepache, and an accessible beer lineup.

Hours are 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday through Monday. Reservations are available on Resy on a rolling 30-day basis.

Banshee, 1600 South St., 267-876-8346, bansheephl.com