On July 4, 1965, gay activists Frank Kameny of Washington, D.C., Craig Rodwell of New York, and Barbara Gittings of Philadelphia gathered 40 of their LGBTQ brethren in front of Independence Hall to demand equality.
Dressed in three-piece suits, dresses, pumps, and spit-shined tie-ups, the marchers protested discriminatory policies that allowed gay people to be fired from government jobs and to be denied entry into military service.
Their slogan: “We don’t dodge the draft … the draft dodges us.”
Artist Jen Proacci’s sculpture features . historic photographs of a Remberance Day event rendered as a high-resolution print, paired with a vibrant rainbow sky that symbolizes the LGBTQ+ community’s ongoing pursuit of equality, protection and freedom.
Held four years before the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, the march made history as the country’s first gay rights demonstration. That 1965 march became an annual protest, now known as the Remembrance March.
The first gathering in 1965 will be celebrated at Philly Pride Visitor Center on Saturday, one of Philadelphia Historic District’s weekly firstival celebrations. Each week in 2026, the Historic District is throwing a day party honoring important events that happened in Philadelphia before anywhere else in the nation and often the world.
“They were the only 40 to 100 people willing to get on the picket line for gay rights for those five years for the entire nation,” said Mark Segal, editor of the Philadelphia Gay News, who was a teenager in 1965.
Picket at Independence Hall, Philadelphia. July 4, 1965. Randy Wicker (L), Barbara Gittings (R)
“It was the one and only march of its kind, and it was national,” he said. “People came from Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. If you were someone involved in getting equality for homosexuals at the time, then you were there.”
Remembrance Marches predated Stonewall but they didn’t lead to Stonewall, Segal added.
The Philadelphia demonstrators in the late 1960s were out of the closet but were still very conservative.
“We were fighting for federal employment,” Kay Tobin Lahusen, the first openly gay American photojournalist, and Gittings’ partner, told The Inquirer in 2007 after Gittings’ death. “We wanted to look employable.”
That conservative energy largely excluded young people at that time, including Segal.
“I wasn’t allowed to march in the Remembrance Marches because I was too young. I didn’t want to wear a suit and tie. I wanted to protest in my jeans and my T-shirts. As a Philadelphian, I loved my city. I appreciated the marches and respect these brave people. But we were ready to smash invisibility.”
Early photos of Philadelphia-based Gay Pride marches part of a collage in the Philly Pride Visitor Center.
That sentiment bubbled across the nation.
Early in the morning of June 28, 1969, LGBTQ protesters led a series of demonstrations against police raids at the now historic gay bar, Stonewall Inn, in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
As a contrast to the more conservative Remembrance Marches, the Stonewall Riots, which Rodwell also participated in, were more disruptive and intersectional. Trans women of color, like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, would eventually go on to become key figures in the uprisings.
Philadelphia’s last Remembrance March took place the following week.
The following June, East Coast Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, also known as ERCHO, adopted a resolution in Philadelphia ending Remembrance March.
“We went from 40 to 100 people in Philadelphia to more than 15,000 in New York,” Segal said.
“The Remembrance Days are important,” echoed Kristopher Lawrence, Philly Pride Visitor Center’s supervisor. “We were all trying to get to the same place, but we had different views on how we thought it should be done.”
This week’s Firstival is Saturday, June 20, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., at the Philly Pride Visitor Center, 1139 Locust St.
Shelly Gaither, 51, of Cheltenham, makes sure her three sons, ages 6, 9, and 18, get their meals while she manages with whatever is left over — if anything ever is.
“Oh, my God, groceries are too expensive,” said Gaither, a former data analyst who suffers from a disability that makes working difficult. She visits a food pantry regularly to make sure her kids eat chicken when they can. Her monthly SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits were reduced from $400 to $200 earlier this year because of changes to the programunder President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“I don’t think there’s hope,” she said. “I feel guilty for bringing children into a world that doesn’t want them to exist because the government makes cuts that take away their food and their healthcare.”
For people like Gaither throughout the United States, levels of food insecurity have seen a “remarkable” rise since the pandemic in 2020, according to a national survey taken earlier this year and released in late May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Around 10% of 1,300 heads of households polled in February reported a lack of enough food and said their children were missing meals, according to the survey. Nearly 16% relied on food donations. Among families taking in less than $50,000 a year, almost 20% reported being forced to skip meals or go without.
In 2020, when the federal government stepped in to help families at the height of the pandemic, just 4% of households reported missing meals, including less than 7% of families earning less than $50,000 a year, according to the survey.
At that time, temporary supplemental unemployment benefits, expanded SNAP payments, and direct government relief payments helped stave off hunger among Americans. Food insecurity increased after COVID-19 relief expired, according to the Urban Institute.
But the recent surge in hunger has also been attributed to the sweeping law Trump signed last year, whichreduces SNAP benefits and other safety net programs to help pay for his tax cut.
Findings in the bank’sreport also reflect Gaither’s sense of despair, a pessimism about personal finances and the overall economy among people with low incomes. That same group exhibits diminished expectations for finding a job and declining levels of consumer confidence, the survey says.
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According to thereserve bank’s report, non-white Americans have been especially hard hit. The number of such households that reported missing meals increased from 4% in 2020 to 19% in February. At the same time, the number of non-white people receiving SNAP benefits jumped from 14% to more than 26%.
Overall, the survey found food insecurity was particularly acute among lower-educated and lower-income households, as well as households with young children. Many families are experiencing financial stress due to the high cost of living, persistent inflation, and high interest rates, even as the stock market has been steadily rising, according to the survey.
Pantries struggle to keep up with demand
More people are flocking to food pantries, but they are not equipped to take up the slack of reduced SNAP benefits.
“Pantries across the state are in perpetual crisis mode,” said Stuart Haniff, CEO of Hunger-Free Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. Add to that the advent of summer, when kids are no longer receiving free breakfast and lunch at school. “Families must now provide those 60 to 80 meals a month,” Haniff said.
In Norristown, “immense need” has increased the number of people frequenting Martha’s Choice Marketplace, the largest food pantry in Montgomery County, by 100% since 2022, said Patrick Walsh, director of programs. “And I don’t expect things to get better.”
Food prices are also up 3.2% this spring over last, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures,exacerbating the issue.
In South Jersey, “we are seeing record numbers at our food distributions,” said Jane Asselta, president and CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey, in a statement to The Inquirer. “Life is getting harder to afford for more and more people.”
Matt McDevitt (left) and Michael Hickey load their vehicle at the Food Bank of South Jersey Thursday, June 11, 2026. The men are volunteers at the Temple Lutheran Church in Pennsauken and their food bank is open from 5-6 p.m. every Thursday.
Asselta said the Federal Reserve Bank’s report “mirrors” what her organization has observed through its network of 300 community partners.
“Hunger has never been higher,” said Pastor Sonita Johnson, who runs the food pantry at St. John’s Pentecostal Outreach Church in Salem City, Salem County. “Food prices are high, and the lines you see you would not believe — a 50% increase in people just over the last two months.”
Nationwide, between January 2025 and January 2026, SNAP rolls decreased by more than 4 million people — from 42 million to 38 million — according to USDA figures.
Between last September and April of this year, nearly 90,000 Pennsylvanians lost SNAP benefits due to new eligibility requirements stipulated by the Trump administration, according to an analysis by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS).
And between December 2025 and last month, more than 32,000 Philadelphians lost benefits, DHS figures show.
In New Jersey, SNAP participation has fallen by more than 50,000 individuals between March 2025 and March of this year, New Jersey Department of Human Services figures show.
The Trump administration’s SNAP changes include an expansion of work requirements for people who receive SNAP benefits and increased documentation requirements “designed to make maintaining eligibility increasingly difficult,” according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the largest anti-hunger lobby in the United States.
Deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement that Trump signed the changes to strengthen SNAP and to ensure that it is “sustainable for future generations.” She added that Trump was “elected to eliminate runaway spending across the federal government.”
William Meo works on the loading dock at the Food Bank of South Jersey Thursday, June 11, 2026.
For people like Shelley Gaither, how her reduced SNAP benefits could be seen as part of “runaway spending” is tough for her to figure, given her needs. To survive this precarious moment, Gaither said, she will do whatever she can.
“We eat more vegetarian meals and I don’t buy my kids cookies or snacks,” she said. “If I drink enough coffee, maybe I just need one meal a day. This is our existence now. This is how we live.”
RINGOES — The first time Ozgur Tunceli planted hazelnut saplings on her Hunterdon County farm, deer came through and ate them to the ground.
The next time, her goats did the same.
“Imagine me sitting there and crying and regretting everything that I did,” she said. “I said, ‘I should sell this farm and just go back to my suburban life.’”
Instead, she got an electric fence. Now, four years after she set out to become a hazelnut farmer, Tunceli has close to 1,000 trees planted on her hilly, sprawling property in Ringoes. She’s part of a small but widening group of pioneers who are working to make hazelnuts as much of a signature New Jersey crop as tomatoes, blueberries, corn, and cranberries.
“We are really trying to build an entire industry here,” Tunceli said.
The state wants to help, said Ed Wengryn, the state’s agriculture secretary.
Officials are eyeing incentives to offset high startup costs and entice more farmers into growing the trees, Wengryn said.
And Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex), whose district office is just up the road from a hazelnut farm in Hillsborough, is seeking $6.5 million in state funding to help growers buy equipment to sort, shell, and package nuts for sale and secure a processing site. He envisions hazelnuts at every Garden State farm stand and a New Jersey version of Nutella on supermarket shelves someday.
“The potential for New Jersey to become a major player in hazelnut production is enormous,” Zwicker said. “I don’t think New Jersey peaches, blueberries, and tomatoes are going away, but I think if we get this right, we will be known worldwide as a hazelnut producer.”
Ozgur Tunceli shows one of the few of her hazelnut trees that is taller than she is on June 5, 2026, at Our Farm by the Creek, her hazelnut farm in Ringoes.
Some hazelnut history
Turkey produces about 70% of the world’s hazelnuts, and until recently, Oregon’s Willamette Valley was the only place in the U.S. to grow the nutrient-rich, round nuts also known as filberts.
The seeds for New Jersey’s fledgling filbert industry were first planted, literally, by Rutgers University.
Tom Molnar was a Rutgers student about 30 years ago hunting for a Ph.D. topic when he decided to focus on hazelnuts, which are native to New Jersey but had been decimated by disease decades ago. Molnar’s mentor was the late C. Reed Funk, Rutgers’ famed turfgrass breeder whose work made the school millions in royalties and a global powerhouse in grass development. Funk saw better breeding as key to growing nuts in the Northeast, Molnar said.
“We had land, we had funding, and he knew how to run a breeding program,” said Molnar, who’s now a professor of plant biology at Rutgers.
Molnar rejected nut trees like walnut, pistachio, and pecan, not wanting to compete with big U.S. producers like California and Georgia. He picked hazelnuts because, besides being native to New Jersey, they need less water, are more compact, and produce faster than other nut trees, he said.
He started by collecting hazelnut seeds from around the world and eventually planted tens of thousands of trees at Rutgers’ research farm in East Brunswick, observing and experimenting to create disease-resistant, higher-yield trees.
By 2020, his research had progressed enough that he wanted to see how his trees would do around the Garden State. He partnered with several farmers to plant Rutgers-bred varieties whose names honor their Jersey roots: Raritan, Somerset, Monmouth, and Hunterdon. Those farms still serve as living laboratories, with new growers adding to their ranks since Rutgers licensed a Columbus nursery to sell their cultivars.
“This has been a dream to grow hazelnuts in the eastern U.S. for 200 years,” Molnar said.
Ed Clerico was one of the “early adopters,” as Molnar puts it.
Farmer Ed Clerico walks the fields of his farm in Hillsborough on June 6, 2026.
Clerico is a third-generation farmer whose family ran a dairy farm in Hillsborough (the one near Zwicker’s office), but who pivoted in retirement to perennial crops that don’t require annual tillage and planting.
He also had a career in water resource management, an experience that has deepened his dedication to filbert farming.
His 38-acre farm sits along Royce Brook, which feeds the Millstone and Raritan rivers, two waterways that flow through nearby Manville and Bound Brook and that sometimes catastrophically flood. He regards hazelnut trees, as well as thirstier breeds like the persimmons and pawpaws he’s planting in a floodplain beside the brook, as pulling double duty.
“There’s just a lot of benefits to agroforestry. Growing trees sequester a lot of carbon, so there’s greenhouse gas benefits. And they help with water quality and flood mitigation,” Clerico said. “This could be one of the best stormwater management and water quality advancements. When you hear about stormwater management, people are very oriented towards man-made infrastructure, but we could be using the environment as infrastructure too.”
Wengryn already is a convert, for the trees’ ecological benefits alone.
“They create a shade canopy, reducing ambient air temperatures in and around the orchard area. When we get these intense storms that drop a quarter to a half inch of rain in 15 minutes, the leaf canopy breaks that up, so it actually falls more gently to the soil and we get less soil erosion from this kind of agriculture,” Wengryn said.
Molnar ticks off a long list of other perks he hopes will persuade more farmers to plant Rutgers’ hazelnuts. They don’t require as many fungicides or insecticides, or as much pruning, as the peach, apple, and other fruit trees more commonly grown in New Jersey. They’re harvested by machine so don’t need as much labor as hand-picked crops. The trees are more climate-resistant and can live for over 50 years, making them both less susceptible to weather extremes that can destroy less-hardy crops and a good long-term investment. And hazelnuts aren’t as perishable as other crops; harvested unshelled nuts can be stored and stay fresh for over a year.
“That means you could sell them throughout the winter into the spring,” Molnar said.
But several hurdles have kept the industry small so far.
The high land costs that can make farming a pricey profession in New Jersey have hindered hazelnut expansion, farmers agreed.
The costs and logistics of processing are another barrier, Molnar added.
With most filbert farming occurring on other continents, U.S. growers must look to Europe and beyond for the machinery to harvest, sort, and get the nuts to market. Tunceli, Clerico, and two other farmers formed an agroforestry cooperative to process, promote, and sell their nuts. The co-op recently bought some equipment, funded by a federal grant, that they’ll house at Tunceli’s 89-acre farm until they find funding to open a separate processing facility.
Farmer Ed Clerico bought specialized equipment, including this mower, to harvest hazelnuts on his Hillsborough farm.
At the same time, it takes five years for young hazelnut trees to produce their first nuts and seven to eight years for them to come into significant production, Molnar said. That means farmers see little to no return on their investment for years.
“Younger farmers don’t really have that much money to invest, while older farmers don’t have that much time,” Tunceli said.
Tunceli, who’s 56 and has kept her job in the healthcare insurance industry, hopes her orchards will thrive enough for her to live wholly off her land, but she expects that could take another five years.
Because hazelnuts have not been a U.S. crop outside of Oregon, some local farmers also see challenges in who to sell them to, fretting that a market might not exist here.
Tuncheli is not one whit worried about that.
She grew up in Turkey and immigrated here for college about 30 years ago. In Turkey, every bit of hazelnut trees gets used, she said. The kernels become nut butters, oils, flour, milk, candies, desserts, and other foods; the trees’ leaves can make herbal teas; their limbs can be used to weave baskets; and nutshells can be used for exfoliating scrubs, cosmetics, and even clean-burning fuels.
“That part is really easy,” she grinned.
Wengryn doesn’t see that as a problem either, noting a “global craze” for treats like Italian company Ferrero’s Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolate-hazelnut bonbons.
“People love this product,” he said of hazelnuts. “There’s very little domestic production of it, and this is an opportunity to enter that market.”
The future of filberts
Zwicker has submitted two budget resolutions that, if approved, would provide $298,200 in state funding to the agroforestry cooperative to support hazelnut automation, cold storage, food safety compliance, and commercial-scale infrastructure and nearly $6.3 million for the cooperative to build a processing facility and establish grower incentives.
Wengryn said he aims to work with the state Economic Development Authority to tailor more “business builder” funding to sustainable agriculture like hazelnut farming. He also thinks New Jersey could designate money collected under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate effort to reduce the power sector’s emissions that worsen climate change, for agroforestry.
“This type of agriculture really complements that carbon sequestration and really does improve our air quality and our water quality,” he said.
Whether or not New Jersey becomes a hub for hazelnuts, Rutgers’ cultivars now grow beyond the Garden State. Their trees are planted on about 300 acres across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio, Molnar said.
His work has made him somewhat of a celebrity in agriculture, at least elsewhere, in places where hazelnuts are a major, prized crop.
“In New Jersey, I’m an anonymous nobody, and like, nobody cares what I do,” he said with a laugh. “I guess agriculture isn’t really cool.”
Thomas Molnar stands in front of hazelnut trees cultivated by his team at Rutgers Horticultural Farm 3 in East Brunswick.
But Clerico expects Molnar’s research, like the trees on his own Hillsborough farm, will outlive them both.
“Rutgers’ work isn’t just leading-edge in terms of New Jersey. What they’ve done in their breeding programs to produce trees that have multiple gene resistance to diseases could benefit everywhere in the world,” Clerico said.
Some state legislators clearly agree and aren’t waiting on the industry to scale up to brag about New Jersey’s role in the hazelnut tree’s return to the region’s soils.
They want hazelnuts to be the official state nut.
The Assembly passed the proposal Thursday, despite opposition from most of the chamber’s Republicans that drove some to voice their objections for the record.
Assemblywoman Aura Dunn (R-Morris) said anointing hazelnuts the state nut was a few decades premature, Assemblyman Gregory Myhre (R-Ocean) said the American chestnut should get the honor, and Brian Bergen (R-Morris) blasted the the bill as a “moronic, awful, stupid, crazy, nutty piece of legislation.”
“Why on earth do we need a state nut?” Bergen said, before imploring Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin: “I just really wish that, Mr. Speaker, you would do a better job selecting the bills that come to the floor, because this is useless.”
Bill sponsor Assemblyman Sterley Stanley (D-Middlesex), whose district includes Rutgers’ research farm, remained undeterred.
In a sweeping statement on the Assembly floor with Molnar standing at his side, Stanley hailed hazelnuts as “the most promising engine for economic development offered to rural communities in decades.”
“These trees represent a monumental achievement for our state, a true breakthrough in science that reinforces why we are known as the Garden State,” he said. “These hazelnuts are testament to the balanced spirit of innovation and resilience that lies at the heart of what it means to be a New Jerseyan.”
A Point Breeze rowhouse, now available for rent, offers residents a chance to live with a one-of-a-kindwork of art — the only Keith Haring collaborative mural that is still intact and in its original location in the world.
The three-bedroom home at 2147 Ellsworth St. is adorned with the acclaimed street and pop artist’s We the Youth . The mural, painted on the building’s facade, has stoodon the corner of 22nd and EllsworthStreets for almost 40 years.
“Keith believed that art was for everyone and that art should be accessible, so to have this mural still at this location for nearly 40 years is historically and culturally significant,”said Jane Golden, founder and executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia.
The muralfeatures an array of Haring’s trademark dancing figures filled with bright colors and patterns. Italso has a small garden next to it, affectionately called “Haring Park,” which has been tended by neighborhood residents since the 1980s.
Keith Haring, who died in 1990, with his painted carousel.
Haring, who was born in Reading in 1958 and raised in Kutztown, drew the mural over a few days in September 1987, coinciding with the U.S. Constitution’s bicentennial. The title of the mural pays homage to the Constitution’s opening lines.
Its location was important to Haring.
He did not want the mural to be in a more upscale, trendy part of the city, one of the mural’s student collaborators, Rita Martello, told online art marketplaceArtsy in 2022.
“He wanted to put it in an actual urban neighborhood,” Martello said to Artsy.
Invited by two nonprofits that worked with youth, CityKids NYC and Brandywine Workshop, Haring worked with 14 students. While some of the dancing figures are solid colored, others feature unique patterns and symbols, all contributed by the students.
“Wherever [murals] are, they provide a foundation where change can begin,” said Golden. “They are a vehicle through which important stories are told, and they allow Philadelphia to maintain its status as a global leader in the arts and culture arena.”
Presently about 1,000 murals are displayed on the sides of residential homes in Philadelphia through partnerships with Mural Arts.
Erica Bryant mimics a figure from the Keith Haring mural on the Point Breeze house she and her husband own. It is the only mural Keith Haring made with community groups that is still intact.
Haring, whose preferred medium was chalk, often created works that were not meant to be permanent. We the Youth too was not immune to decay over time.
In 2013, after Erica and Lucas Bryant of St. Paul, Minn., bought the house, Mural Arts undertook a massive restoration of the piece, adding several layers of paintand a protective coating against the sun, entirely replacing damaged sections, and replacing the chain link fence.
“Philly is very proud to have a Keith Haring mural and especially one embedded in the community that was done in such a collaborative manner,” said Golden.
Haring, who started making chalk drawings in the New York subway, first wanted to paint We the Youth on a garbage truck but was refused by the Philadelphia Sanitation Department.
He diedin 1990, from AIDS-related complicationsat age 31.
“You can be the only person in the world who livesin a Keith Haring art piece!” boasts the OCF Realty listing for the three-bedroom, 2 ½ bathroom apartment.
The 1,797-square-foot, three-story rowhouse was renovated in 2020and has a backyard patio andaroof deck. The property, managed by OCF Realty, rents for $3,295/month.
The show, initially an adaptation of a 1981 film directed by Alan Alda, released its second season in May with its ensemble cast, including Fey, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Marco Calvani, and Erika Henningsen. Each season sees the friend group travel together on four trips throughout the course of one year, going as far as Italy and Puerto Rico and as near as upstate New York and the Jersey Shore (where they filmed in Ocean Grove and Point Pleasant Beach).
Created by Fey and fellow 30 Rock writers Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher, The Four Seasons has been credited for its realistic and heartwarming portrayal of middle-aged couples in long-term relationships and friendships.
Fey and Domingo, from Upper Darby and West Philly, respectively, direct some episodes as well. Like their on-screen friendship, the actors have gotten closer as they’ve worked together on the show, they told The Inquirer last month.
“We grew up so geographically close together. I was like on the very edge of the last street in Upper Darby, and across the street was Cobbs Creek Park,” said Fey, adding that they’re the same age.
Tina Fey as Kate and Colman Domingo as Danny in Season 2 of the Netflix comedy series “The Four Seasons,” which premiered May 28.
“I feel like you can see [our friendship] on screen, because it’s actually what has happened personally for us as well, as we got to know each other and each other’s families, each other’s hearts,” said Domingo. “The Jersey Shore location felt very personal for us, because I feel like we grew up there and it brings up [memories].”
In Season 2, the group is grieving the death of their friend Nick (Steve Carrell) and navigating major life changes, like in the case of Domingo and Calvani’s characters. Danny and Claude move to Italy after deciding not to have children. In the finale, however, the couple decide to move to Danny’s hometown of Philadelphia to care for his aging mother. (Initially, Danny tries convincing his mom to live with them in Italy, but when she hears there’s no Wawa in the country, she simply replies, “Then there’s no Beverly in Italy.”)
Will Season 3 see the cast spending any time in Philly? The itinerary hasn’t been announced, but we’re holding out hope.
Cocreator and writer Tina Fey in “The Four Seasons.”
Calvani, in the Netflix announcement, suggested that Season 3 might feature Danny and Claude’s “other, hotter” friend group; Calvani said he hopes to “explore our gay friends” and Domingo added that it would be fun to “take the straights on that vacation.”
One potential new addition to the show is Doctor Who actor David Tennant, who made a cameo in the Season 2 finale as a love interest for Kenney-Silver’s character, Anne. Wigfield hinted at the idea of more story lines with Tennant’s character, but his involvement isn’t official just yet.
“Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield have a magical way of blending heart and sharp humor, making us feel like part of the inner circle,” said Netflix’s vice president of U.S. comedy Tracey Pakosta in the announcement. “Audiences have fallen in love with these characters and this legendary cast’s electric chemistry.”
After nearly 25 years in operation, the newly renovated H Mart in Cherry Hill is drawing crowds as regulars and newcomers marvel at its major improvements.
The outpost of the renowned Korean grocery store off Route 70 has served the local community since 2001. In April 2025, the Cherry Hill Township Planning Board approved plans for an expansion. A year later, the grocery store reopened with enhancements to the first floor and an open-concept food court, bakery, and retail space on the second.
As a diehard H Mart fan, I decided to venture across the bridge on a recent Thursday and see the 39,000-square-foot store for myself.
Customers shop inside H Mart Cherry Hill.
Where to start your H Mart visit
I arrived at the brick building, marked with the familiar “H Mart” sign in big red letters, at about 11 a.m. Entering through the double sliding doors of the second floor, I found myself inside the new food court.
A few customers dined in the massive seating area that morning, enjoying various dishes. I decided to grab an iced brown sugar coffee boba from Tiger Sugar as a little treat to sip on during my exploration.
Beginning the journey on the second floor was the right move, according to Ryan Solot, a regular shopper at H Mart. He and his wife, Miki Solot, came to the store once a week before renovations. The couple were shopping for dashi stock and Japanese sauces when I ran into them. They were happy to see the makeover, particularly on the second floor’s general shop department. But the Solots still felt the first-level aisles were a bit narrow for ideal grocery shopping.
“The layout is strangely unchanged,” Ryan Solot said. “It’s still kind of awkward to get through the aisles … but start from the top [floor] and make your way down, it’s much more organized upstairs.”
Korean beauty section at H Mart Cherry Hill.
The second floor of H Mart: general goods, Korean beauty products, and an arcade
Walking out of the food court area, I found a mini Korean beauty store with boxed shelving displaying creams, serums, cleansers, tonics, and other products from popular brands such as Medicube, Anua, and Beauty of Joseon. Attendants explained the various products to customers, especially to Korean skincare novices like myself.
Neon arrow signs next to the beauty department directed me into H Mart’s general store and “H Pop” section. A small selection of drinks and snacks lined the shelves leading me into the rows of shelves with over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, toiletry items, slippers, bedding, and kitchenware.
In the back corner I found a vast selection of cutesy notebooks, pens (ones with funky kiwi and toilet attachments), furry character key chains, mini toys, makeup storage containers, and other knickknacks. The prices for items were organized by serial numbers, which were listed on a card hanging off the shelves. Pro tip: Take a photo of that price card to reference as you shop.
Customers shop inside H Mart Cherry Hill.
The first floor of H Mart: frozen foods, fresh produce and seafood, snacks, and lots of instant noodles
Taped to the elevator, two signs offered directions on where to find specific items. “Second floor: food court, house ware, characters, K-beauty, game, health food” and “First floor: Asian/Western, produce, fish, meat, ready to eat, banchan” were written in all caps and highlighted in yellow.
The elevator also had another sign with an important tip for shoppers: “You are welcome to shop freely on both 1st and 2nd floor, and you may check out either floor.”
Downstairs on the first level, the elevator opened up to aisles upon aisles of snacks, produce, sauces, packaged sweets, and lots of instant noodles. Each aisle is organized by number with a sign noting all the items available.
Shrimp crackers at H Mart Cherry Hill.
I walk into Aisle 3 as I exited the elevator and found snacks galore. KitKats, Pocky sticks, Buldak ramen-flavored chips, O’jelly real plum candies, lychee gummies, Poongnyun Bakery seaweed crackers, and so much more lined the shelves. I picked up some of my favorites: Shrimp crackers, crispy snacks made from starch and ground shrimp, and a bag of chocolate yogurt-covered orange slices sitting nearby.
Next, I headed into Aisle 5 for beverages. The vast selection includes soy milk, hojicha, banana milk, corn silk tea, coconut milk and juice, and taro. I grabbed a tall can of Thai tea and a couple of glass bottles of Ramune, a fizzy, fruity, sweet Japanese soda.
Thai tea at H Mart Cherry Hill.
I stopped by Aisle 10 for chili oil and pho seasonings. And on Aisle 1, I found instant noodles plentiful — the Japanese-style soba noodle box piqued my interest. At the end of Aisle 9, I saw cups filled with ice in the freezer section and drinks packaged in pouches for easy pouring. I grabbed the peach mango tea to accompany my post-shopping food court lunch.
As I walked deeper into the store, I found Catherine Yao and her mother, Jingjing Dong, in the massive seafood section, picking live crabs from a big box.
Live crab selection at H Mart Cherry Hill.
Yao and Dong, who live five minutes from the store, come to the H Mart every week. They come for the fresh seafood — live fish, lobsters, and crabs swim in big tanks near the butchers, while some sit in displays on ice — and frozen meats — think beef bulgogi and pork belly. The two also like exploring the premade foods section next door; I picked up a crab onigiri for the road.
The mother-daughter duo recommended stopping by the vast produce section near the cashiers. “I like the fresh durian, lychees, mangoes, and the gold melons,” Dong said.
Food court at H Mart Cherry Hill.
The food court
Around noon, I took the elevator back up to the second floor and ventured back into the food court for lunch.
The court can feel overwhelming, with nine vendors to choose from — think bibimbap, Korean fried chicken, and noodles. Thankfully, Yao and Dong recommended a couple of options: Kyodong Noodles, a Korean-style Chinese noodle restaurant; Daily Seoul, a Korean lifestyle food brand; and Tiger Sugar, the Taiwanese bubble tea vendor I sampled earlier.
While perusing the vendors, I ran into regular Ryan Solot at Mirim, a traditional Korean restaurant. He recommended the cold buckwheat noodle soup. “I didn’t like how it looked at first but then I tried it and it was very good,” he said.
Spicy cold buckwheat noodle soup H Mart Cherry Hill.
I ordered the spicy buckwheat noodles with beef at Mirim. The dish was served in a metal bowl with pickled vegetables on the side, chopsticks included.
For Yao, the food court is a great addition to the store.
“I like coming here more now because they have a food court — we go to eat there pretty often, for lunch and dinner sometimes,“ she said.
H Mart Cherry Hill: 1720 Route 70 E, Cherry Hill; 856-489-4611; Monday to Sunday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
On a warm weekend earlier this month, dozens of shoppers, some of them dressed in Regency-inspired apparel, milled about the city of Bordentown, in Burlington County.
Those donning bonnets and hand fans weren’t time travelers or lost actors — they were there to celebrate the opening of a new bookshop with plenty of historic flair of its own.
Inspired by the works of renowned 18th- and 19th-century novelist Jane Austen, Austen’s Shelf penned a new chapter June 6 with the opening of its storefront at 230 Farnsworth Ave. The bookshop, which held a period-inspired costume contest for the occasion, is part of a growing surge of independent bookstores nationwide.
Austen’s Shelf launched last year as a mobile bookstore in a 98-square-foot trailer.
Austen’s Shelf launched last year as a 98-square-foot mobile bookstore that popped up at festivals and events, many of them in South Jersey. It was born out of founder Charity Herndon’s desire to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning a bookstore, something she decided to pursue after facing a breast cancer scare.
While she ultimately didn’t end up with a diagnosis, the experience changed how the now-30-year-old looked at life.
“I feel like a completely different person than I was before the health scare,” she said. “After you get over that mountain, it’s kind of like, all systems go.”
For Herndon, it was. Within months of her mobile shop’s September opening, she began to contemplate a more permanent space, seeing a desire from customers to “sit and linger.” With long lines forming at pop-ups, she felt like the shop had become as much about buying a book as it was a place for people to connect.
That was further stoked after a dreary winter and one particularly busy January pop-up at Turtle Beans Coffee in Bordentown. During that event, she said visitors told Herndon “we need a bookstore like this in town.”
While there’s already an independent bookstore there, Old Book Shop of Bordentown specializes in general used, out-of-print, and antiquarian books. Coincidentally, Jane Austen is the 21-year-old shop’s second-best selling author, owner Doug Palmieri said.
Given the two don’t have significant crossover in their business models, he welcomes having another bookshop nearby. Like antique stores, “the more there are in one area, the better for business,” he said, adding that he got a boost during Austen’s Shelf’s opening weekend, which coincided with the New Jersey book crawl and another store’s opening.
Independent bookstores like Austen’s Shelf are on the rise nationally. According to the American Booksellers Association, 605 new bookstore businesses opened in 2025, an 87% increase from 2024.
They’ve proliferated in the Philadelphia suburbs in recent months. Chapter Two Books opened in Wynnewood in May, Forage Books debuted in Kennett Square in February, and two bookstores, Celia Bookshop and Dirt Farm Books, opened in Swarthmore in October and January, respectively. The latter specializes in used and rare books.
Books aren’t the only media form making a resurgence. A Passyunk Square resident is on the hunt for a place to set up Little Movie Store, a video rental shop in the vein of Blockbuster.
Palmieri — a 20-year member, current secretary, and past president of the Downtown Bordentown Association, which promotes and supports local businesses — attributes the growth of indie bookshops partly to an uptick in younger readers, primarily those in their 20s and 30s.
“They like the touch and feel of books,” he said. “They like to have the books in their hands.”
DBA treasurer and past president CJ Mugavero, who owns Artful Deposit, sees the rise in retail as something of a reaction to the increased digitization of society.
“What people are craving is the human factor,” she said. That’s helped spur a number of new businesses in Bordentown recently.
Located next door to Austen’s Shelf, menswear and home store Haberdashery and Home debuted this month. Earlier this spring, the historic city welcomed art spaces Bonaparte Boutique and Sleeping Cat, an expansion of studio Leaping Dog. Abyssal Brewing and yoga and pilates studio The Movement also put down roots there in the first half of this year.
Beyond a desire for the tactile, “people long for community, and I think that’s something you can’t necessarily find if you’re just ordering your books off of Amazon,” Herndon said.
That was top of mind when she conceptualized her new space, which is small, but more than quadruple the size of the mobile bookshop. Clocking in at under 500 square feet, it has a “homey” vibe that allows for lingering and connecting. There are two sitting areas, one with a couch, the other a table and chairs. The latter sits beneath a large mural depicting Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,painted by Philadelphia artist Erik Weedeman.
Shoppers browse for books and other goods at Austen’s Shelf in Bordentown.
Like its predecessor, this edition of Austen’s Shelf caters to a wide range of readers, stocking a curated selection of young adult, literary fiction, poetry, mystery and thriller, and fantasy, as well as children’s books.
There’s also a room dedicated to Austen, complete with a gilded digital display showing film adaptations of her books. Herndon also sells a selection of what she’s dubbed “Regency-modern” apparel.
With a permanent space now up and running, Herndon has no plans to stop taking the mobile bookstore out. She’s just refining the schedule and taking on fewer events.
A former Bordentown resident who now lives in Gloucester County, Herndon hopes the shop helps draw visitors to the city. She wants visiting Austen’s Shelf to feel “like an experience where the entire town can kind of be a place to linger.”
If opening weekend was any indication, that just might be the case. Looking out at the historic city during the grand opening and seeing people wander the streets in period-inspired attire, she said the image “just fits like a glove. It’s the dream, literally.”
Austen’s Shelf is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
From horses giving way to cars and the invention of television, to the election of more than a dozen presidents, World War II, and even the sale of sliced bread — the 45 Chester County centenarians who gathered for an annual luncheon this week have watched the world remake itself time and time again.
“I saw a lot of things. A lot of wars, and a lot of popes. There’s a lot of good things,” said Anne Caporale, who will turn 100 in July. “I got married, had a family. I had a good life.”
The annual luncheon celebrated Chester County’s group of centenarians — a total of 57 residents reaching or surpassing the milestone. Tuesday’s celebration saw a dozen who would turn 100 this year, plus quite a few returning attendees, including 108-year-old Evelyn Fair, who still writes poetry.
“You are the builders, the teachers, the parents, the neighbors, and the foundation of the Chester County community,” Josh Maxwell, chair of the board of county commissioners, told attendees. “Every single comfort and freedom we enjoy today is a direct result of the hard work, sacrifice, and grace you poured into the world decades and decades ago. We are walking today on paths that you have all cleared.”
Meet some of Chester County’s longest residents.
Henry Jacks, 104
Henry Jacks, 104, enjoys the annual centenarian luncheon hosted by the Department of Aging.
Henry Jacks moved to South Coatesville when he was 4 years old, and has called it home ever since. He’s witnessed “quite a bit of change.”
He remembers watching deliveries come by horse and wagon and recalls the hard days of the 1930s during the Great Depression (“cost of living wasn’t as bad as it is now,” he noted). Jacks joined the Army in 1940 during World War II, serving in the 92nd Engineers Regiment, and was stationed in Africa and Italy. He came back home to have three children, a boy and two girls.
He was a Boy Scout leader, the first Black mail carrier in Coatesville, a city council member, and a judge of elections. He still sings in the church choir. (His advice: “Treat people right. Go to church.”)
“So many changes that I’ve seen in the days,” he said. “I remember when I first saw TV; one of the neighbors had one, and all of the kids used to watch through his window. I’ve seen from the horses, to the cars, to the jet airplanes. And it’s been a wonderful life.”
Letitia Hemphill, 103
Letitia Hemphill, 103, at Tuesday’s luncheon.
Letitia Hemphill started her working life at the candy counter at the former F.W. Woolworth’s five-and-dime in her hometown of West Chester. Though her father remarked she wasn’t good at math, she’d go on to have a long career using her skills while filling the registers and doing the end-of-day count in a department store and later at the treasurer’s office.
She retired in 1986 but had trouble sitting still.
“I got bored of not working,” she said.
She started cleaning houses. It was something she’d always done: help her mother clean in the morning, and then go to the park in the afternoon. She kept up the tradition with her two grandkids and her two great-grandkids, whom she babysat for 14 years.
An active life has been key to Hemphill, who did 10 years of ballroom dancing and more than 20 years at the gym.
“Keep your body moving and keep your mind moving,” she said.
She keeps her mind active by painting landscapes in watercolor, a hobby she took up in 1995.
Hemphill was born in West Chester to a stonemason father and a stay-at-home mother. Once, someone asked Hemphill if she had a lot of friends. With 11 brothers and sisters, she remarked she didn’t need any.
When she journeys through West Chester, she points out all the stores that have changed over time.
Still, Chester County is “beautiful,” and much of her family is still around to keep her moving: two children, two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Joseph Donia, 100
Joseph Donia, 100. There were 45 centenarians in attendance at Tuesday’s luncheon.
Up until last year or so, Joseph Donia’s hobby was building boats. He constructed a 20-foot wooden cabin cruiser from scratch. He had it for 40 years.
“The only reason I sold it — my wife couldn’t get on it anymore,” he said.
He had a lifelong love of boats, and spent five years at sea for the U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II. His time in service was the only time he wasn’t living in West Chester, where he bought a house and raised three kids. He also has six grandkids and three great-grandkids.
His most recent project was a 35-foot sailboat. It’s still sitting behind his West Chester home, but he’s given it to his son to finish.
It kept the 100-year-old active — something he advises.
Eleanor Hammond has always been a fan of creative pursuits: a voracious reader who knitted and sewed. She stitched her daughter’s wedding gown, and, perhaps more memorably, a jacket for her husband.
“He insisted I make him a jacket because I sewed for everyone else. He picked out the material; looked like Liberace. It was horrible,” she said. “I wouldn’t go out with him when he wore it.”
A graduate of Coatesville High School, Hammond would go on to work there until she was 81, in the principal’s office. She was once a disciplinarian, and truancy officer. She’s watched the county change over time, marveling at the amount of development. And, less positively, the traffic.
“The way to get here, I used to zip here,” she said. “But I can’t do that now.”
Still, she likes it, and the changes that have come with time.
“I’ve been here a long time. Everything about it is beautiful. The people are friendly, and it’s a beautiful place,” she said.
And as much as she loves home, she recommends travel. If you don’t know the language, be nice, smile, and “use your arms” to convey your meaning.
Anne Caporale, 99
Anne Caporale, who turns 100 in July.
Anne Caporale graduated alongside Hammond at Coatesville High School. She went on to raise six kids, and has 10 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren.
“We have quite a group,” she said. “I love them.”
She has found Chester County to be a good place to live and “wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
She lives at home, right by one of Downingtown’s high schools, which she loves because “the kids are great.” She still does her laundry and cooks every day. The luncheon Tuesday was a treat for her. “Let somebody else do the cooking,” she said.
Keeping active is the secret, she said.
“I know we’re here for a reason, but I don’t know it. I don’t question it,” she said.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
At noon on a bright June Tuesday, the scene at Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza on the Wildwood boardwalk felt more like a South Philly block party than a soft opening.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino worked the crowd at his new shop — hugging, shaking hands, posing for photos — moving easily among his friends and admirers. At 64, five years removed from the criminal justice system, the onetime alleged head of Philadelphia’s underworld is enjoying a second act that few could have predicted: cheesesteak entrepreneur, podcaster, and social-media personality.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino (left) and Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri Jr. (right) posing with a customer outside the Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza shop in Wildwood.
Orbiting him with a phone and a grin was Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri Jr. — 30 years his junior — Skinny Joey’s collaborator and the man who helped set him up with a new career. While customers lined up out front for steaks, slices, photos, $35 hats, and $25 T-shirts, Perri was shooting clips for social media.
Their partnership has transformed Merlino from a flashy, polarizing tabloid fixture into a flashy, polarizing Instagram-age brand. Merlino provides the mythology, while Perri supplies the algorithm.
Symbiotically, they are building an unlikely enterprise. Merlino gives Perri access, credibility, and a bigger stage. Perri gives Merlino comic relief, social-media fluency, and a way to be seen as entrepreneurial rather than simply infamous as a reputed former mob boss.
“Without me, there’s no him,” Perri said. “Without him, there’s no me. It’s just a good mix.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino joining customers at Skinny Joey’s in Wildwood during its soft opening on June 2. They call themselves “the Schuylkill Girls” (from left): Julie Shelton, Cindy McCullough, and Terry Landy, all of whom now live in Wildwood.
A ‘mob media’ moment
George Anastasia, who covered organized crime for more than 30 years at The Inquirer and now teaches an organized-crime course at Rowan University, said Merlino’s new career fits a broader moment in mob media.
Former wiseguys, associates, historians, and fans now gather in a true-crime subculture known online as “MobTube,” where the lore is packaged into YouTube shows, Patreon feeds, podcasts, clips, and merch.
Merlino has lived the story that fuels the genre. One of Philadelphia’s most recognizable organized-crime figures, Merlino was convicted in 1990 for his role in a $352,000 armored truck robbery in 1987.
In 2001, he and six co-defendants were tried on federal racketeering charges, including three counts of murder and two of attempted murder. Merlino was acquitted on those counts, but served about 12 years on other charges, including gambling and extortion. A supervised-release violation briefly returned him to prison in 2014, and a second major racketeering case ended in 2018 with a guilty plea to a single illegal-gambling charge after a mistrial. In a separate trial in 2004, he was acquitted of the 1996 killing of Joseph Sodano, an underling in North Jersey. Merlino completed federal supervision in 2021, but he’s been banned from New Jersey casinos since 1988 and from Pennsylvania casinos since a 2016 incident at the former SugarHouse Casino.
And Merlino has made it no secret that he is different from many of the former figures who populate the MobTube genre. Unlike Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, John Alito, and Jimmy Calandra, Merlino never cooperated with prosecutors.
“He saw guys who cooperated come back and become media sensations,” Anastasia said. “And I think he got [annoyed] that these are all guys who, in his view, violated the code, and now they’re making money on that old life. He did his time as a stand-up guy. ‘So [to heck with that] — I’m going to make money, too.’ And he created this brand.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino (left) and Joe Perri Jr. on the set of “The Skinny” podcast.
Perri helped make that legible to a younger audience.
“Lil Snuff is part sycophant and part guide,” Anastasia said. “He’s the one who, in a lot of ways, sets the flow. Joey is going to be Joey, but somebody has to keep bringing him back to the point.”
The rise of Lil Snuff
Before he was Merlino’s co-host, Perri was Lil Snuff.
The nickname came from his father: As a 10-year-old, Joe Sr. turned around when a cousin was calling for a dog named Snuffy. Boom. He was Snuff. When his son was born at Methodist Hospital in 1992, Snuff became Big Snuff.
As a teenager, Lil Snuffbussedtables at Stogie Joe’s, the Saloon, and Fitzwater Cafe. At 18, he joined the stagehands union. At 21, he got a job at Mall Chevrolet in Cherry Hill. The older salesmen had relationships and repeat customers. Perri’s mentor told him that he needed a lane.
It was 2013, and social media was beginning to reshape promotion. Perri started making his own brassy, unscripted commercials. “Selling Chevys for less” became his tagline.
He also made videos about gambling and food, his two passions. He was not famous, but he was visible in the South Philly-to-South Jersey social media corridor where restaurants, sports, betting, family, and neighborhood identity blur into one feed.
At the same time, Perri said, he was abusing pills. In 2014, at 22, his parents found him a rehab center in South Florida. To make sure he got there safely, they called a family friend whose Italian restaurant in Boca Raton had recently opened:
Joey Merlino.
“My father grew up with his grandfather,” Merlino said, explaining the bond. “I grew up with his father. I’ve known him since he was born.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino in 2014 at the Boca Raton restaurant bearing his name.
Perri said it took several attempts before recovery stuck. He has been sober since Sept. 11, 2016. “I’m big with recovery,” he said. “That’s the main thing in my life. I put sobriety first and then everything after that.”
Merlino’s — where Merlino was maitre d’ because his legal situation then precluded ownership — closed in 2016, just before the feds arrested Merlino at his home in Boca in the lead-up to his second racketeering case. “If I didn’t have this trouble, it would still be open,” Merlino said earlier this month.
After Merlino attained freedom in July 2021, producers called with movie, television, and book deals. Merlino turned them all down. “Nothing seemed right,” Merlino said. Someone brought up the idea of a podcast.
“I didn’t even know what that was,” Merlino said.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino leaving the federal courthouse in Manhattan after being sentenced on Oct. 17, 2018.
His friend Raymond “Wags” Wagner explained the concept and suggested a loose format built around food and sports betting. Actor Kevin Connolly of Entourage fame, who was involved early as a producer, told Merlino that he needed a co-host.
“They said, ‘Who would you want?’” Perri said. “They were sending him people, and he was like, ‘I’m not doing nothing with these people.’”
Then Ray Wags suggested Perri.
“Joey was like, ‘100 percent. Get him on the phone,’” Perri said. “Kevin Connolly said, ‘Send me your videos.’ I sent him my videos, and he said, ‘You’re the guy.’ The rest was history.”
The world of ‘MobTube’
Merlino and Perri launched the video podcast in 2023. Viewers are not just watching Merlino talk about the old life. They see him bust Perri’s chops about eating too much and mock his parlays. They get gambling tips, watch them interview athletes and celebrities — all part of a South Philly generational comedy.
Perri describes it in family terms. “My dad’s my dad, but he’s also my best friend, too,” Perri said. “We gamble together. We go out together. We have fun together. So they see me and Joey as that, and they can’t figure out how we mix so good.”
“He’s good,” Merlino said. “I’m old, he’s young. He talks good, he’s funny. He’s a pain in the balls, but it’s a good fit.”
They began The Skinny podcast on YouTube, but now focus more on Patreon, where the content is unfiltered. And better monetized. Perri says TheSkinny has 1,600 Patreon subscribers paying $15.95 a month. He said their social-media pages combined average 30 million views a month.
Perri’s wife, Danielle, handles bookings and schedules. “I produce,” Perri said. “I cut the clips. I do everything. It’s me and Joey. Two-man show.”
A wider audience
When they started, Perri was still selling cars at Mall Chevrolet. But the now-shuttered dealership got tired of people showing up hoping to see Merlino instead of test-driving a Suburban.
Perri quit. The show grew.Merlino’s reinvention has coincided with a broader shift in the gambling world. Legal sportsbooks, now ubiquitous on television and online, have largely supplanted the corner bookmaker, turning an activity once associated with organized crime into a mainstream consumer business. Guests span sports, hip-hop, gambling, and entertainment, including Wallo267, Fat Joe, Ric Flair, and Bernard Hopkins.
Each booking widened his audience, and Merlino was being absorbed into a broader celebrity ecosystem.
Last October, Netflix released Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia, a docuseries revisiting the violent 1990s power struggle between John Stanfa and Merlino’s younger faction. It steered even more viewers to Merlino and Perri’s world.
‘Skinny Joey,’ wit’
Then came the cheesesteaks.
One night, Perri, Merlino, and friends were playing poker. Merlino wanted cheesesteaks. Perri said he’d make them.
“He’s like, ‘You can’t make cheesesteaks,’” Perri said. “I said, ‘Are you nuts? I’ve been making them my whole life.’”
Perri cooked some. “He was like, ‘This is the best f— cheesesteak ever,’” Perri said. “He said, ‘Let’s open up a cheesesteak place.’ I said, ‘All right. Call it Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks.’ And that was it.”
The first shop opened in March 2025 at 3020 S. Broad St., near the sports complex. From the start, Skinny Joey’s was more than a sandwich shop. It was a set. The shop leaned into Merlino’s notoriety; the sandwiches are wrapped in a collage of newspaper articles about his past.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino (left) working the grill beside Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri Jr. at the Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks in Philadelphia at its opening in March 2025.
Celebrities showed up: Jason Kelce, Landon Dickerson, Mack Wilson. A customer eating a cheesesteak was good content. A recognizable person eating one on camera was better.
The restaurant also became a magnet for the kind of drama that fuels digital engagement: online beef. Podcaster Gene Borrello, a former Bonnano crime family associate and Merlino antagonist, weighed in last year on an apparent feud between Skinny Joey’s camp and Frank Olivieri of Pat’s King of Steaks. Merlino and Perri had taken issue with a video posted by Olivieri — whose great-uncle invented the steak sandwich — in which he chided shops that chop the meat on the grill. Like most online food feuds, this seems to have subsided.
Then came the deal for Wildwood, where Skinny Joey’s replaced Joe’s Pizzeria, which had been on the boardwalk at Magnolia Avenue for 15 years. There, Skinny Joey’s added pizza and stromboli, which are not sold at the South Philadelphia location.
Reflections in the pizza display case on the boardwalk at Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza in Wildwood.
The pizza recipe comes from Vito’s on Haddonfield Berlin Road in Cherry Hill, and the stromboli from Pizza Shack at 15th and Oregon in South Philadelphia, both owned by Skinny Joey’s business partners Stephen Casasanto and John Fioravanti, whom Merlino also described as longtime friends.
More locations are planned. Perri said a Boothwyn shop is expected around Sept. 1, and several others are in the pipeline.
Bypassing the gatekeepers
Merlino is an extreme case of a recent phenomenon. People with complicated histories — criminal, scandalous, controversial, or simply overexposed — no longer need traditional gatekeepers to reintroduce themselves. They can speak directly to followers and monetize the attention.
Perri is not a journalist, of course, or a publicist, exactly. He is not merely a manager, producer, or sidekick. He is something in between — a new kind of local media operator.
He knows the scene, and how to make content feel unscripted even when the business behind it is deliberate. He is close enough to Merlino to bust his chops and deferential enough to preserve the hierarchy. He can translate Merlino to younger audiences without making him seem managed.
Perri softens Merlino without sanding him down. Merlino still curses, rants, and mocks rivals. Anyone they disagree with is a “bedbug.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino greets a table of customers at Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza in Wildwood.
“At the end of the day, Joey isn’t going to change who he is for anybody,” Perri said. “If he can’t talk the way he wants to talk, what’s the point?”
That is part of the appeal and part of the discomfort. The audience knows Merlino’s history. They may see him as funny, defiant, loyal, misunderstood, or simply entertaining.
“There’s a segment of the American population that has always been fascinated with the outlaw: Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Don Corleone, Al Capone,” Anastasia said. “What the internet has provided is: Here are these guys in their own words. Are they being genuine? I don’t know. You can say that about any personality. But here’s a look at them without any filter.”
The filter used to be people like Anastasia.
“I was, in a lot of ways, the middleman between the people who were interested in this and the guys who were doing it,” he said. “And people who are interested in this don’t need the middleman anymore. They just go online and listen to whoever they want to listen to.”
Hi we decided to write this together so you have both sides fairly represented. We recently moved in together and it’s going great (young, gay, in love!), but we only have AC in the bedroom. One of us prefers the room wayyyy hotter than the other at night (80 degrees vs. 70 degrees). One of us argues that at 70 degrees, the other person can just wear sweatpants. The other one argues that at 80 degrees it’s not that hot, it saves money, and the other person can focus the fan on themselves. What do we do?
Earl Hopkins, Arts & Entertainment Reporter
As someone who naturally runs hot, especially during the summer months, anything above 76 degrees is an absolute no go. I never understood why some people like to bake under their covers, but our bodies all operate differently.
I think an easy compromise is to place the AC somewhere in the middle. Maybe around 75? That seems reasonable to me.
Stephanie Farr, Features Columnist
First, I love that they wrote this together. It shows they communicate well and are willing to face problems openly and honestly, which is a great foundation for any relationship.
Second, it’s often said that one of the things couples argue about most is money, but I’m of the firm belief ambient room temperature ranks pretty high up on that list, too. It’s something you may not even think about until you move in with someone and realize they are the Human Torch or Mr. Freeze.
In my house, I am Mr. Freeze, so I’m fully siding with the partner who has the totally reasonable request to keep the AC at 70. 80 is way too hot. Heck, thanks to the Human Torch I live with I’ve discovered even 75 is too hot at night for me to sleep with a blanket on — and I need a blanket to sleep.
What’s your opinion on putting on more clothes vs. using a fan?
Earl Hopkins
I think it’s way easier to add a layer of clothes than it is to have the sound of a fan buzzing in your ear all night. It’s OK when there’s a heatwave and broken AC. But beyond that, I recommend throwing on a pair of sweats, a long sleeve shirt, or a beanie.
Also, I’m no electrician or HVAC specialist, but are you really saving that much money? I don’t know. Stephanie, how do you feel about cuddling as an alternative to 80-degree temps? I think there’s a cheat code there.
Stephanie Farr
Oh I love the cuddling idea! It promotes intimacy and is a good argument against keeping it warm in the room. Nobody wants to cuddle someone when they’re all hot and sweaty.
And I’m with you on more clothes vs. fan. You can always put more clothes on when you’re cold or pile up the blankets (and cuddle!), but when it’s getting so hot in there you’ve already taken off all your clothes and you’re still sweating, what then? Are you supposed to sleep with ice packs because a fan alone will not cut it?
Do you think that only having one room with AC — aside from the whole house — should factor into the decision?
Earl Hopkins
I think so! If there’s only one room your partner can truly get cozy in, give them free rein. It’s like giving your loved one the last slice of pizza or chocolate cake. Of course you want it, but it’s a lovely gesture that doesn’t require much sacrifice. A little chill at night won’t hurt!
Stephanie Farr
Agreed! The AC room should be considered a human refrigerator in this home — an arctic oasis where the one who’s Mr. Freeze can escape and find solace. The Human Torch partner already has all the other rooms nice and toasty, so they can go to sleep in one of them if they don’t like the cold.
I wonder if the partner who wants it 80 degrees at night may not be from the U.S. In that case, this makes a bit more sense. We’re very spoiled here. I remember a great column last year by Adrian Schulz, a journalist from Berlin who did a fellowship with us at The Inquirer last summer. He expressed shock, confusion, and mild horror at our AC habits here, writing: “Am I in a restaurant or in the Siberian Tundra? Am I at an airport gate or in a cryogenic chamber? Am I on the Broad Street Line or the Polar Express?” Meanwhile, when I went to Germany in September 2024, I was shocked, confused, and mildly horrified by the lack of AC everywhere amid sweltering heat.
It’s what you’re used to, I guess, but living with a partner means getting used to new things. I think Earl has the best idea — a compromise at 75 — to start out (then slowly inch the temp down from there by dangling the possibility of more cuddles).
