Large-scale data centers will not be moving into Medford any time soon thanks to a new ordinance adopted unanimously by the Medford Township Council this week.
While the township has not yet received any formal applications for data centers, officials are taking steps like the ordinance passed Tuesday that specifically prohibits the land use within town limits as a chance to be proactive.
“These are extra precautions to ensure that we don’t move forward in a direction that we can’t come back from until we know full well what the impacts of data centers will be,” Medford Mayor Michael Czyzyk said at Tuesday’s public hearing.
The ordinance received support from Medford-area residents at the hearing but some questioned whether the township might be making its bed too early considering how quickly technology evolves, especially if there’s a chance to reap the rewards of a data center project without negatively impacting the surrounding community.
“If there’s no impacts to the residents and there’s only a financial benefit, I believe I would consider looking at that at that time, but we’re not there yet,” Czyzyk said.
While the ordinance constraints may seem all-limiting as it exists today, Czyzyk said, council maintains the authority to at any point amend the ordinance to permit data centers in the township’s redevelopment district.
“I definitely understand that things will evolve and there may be a time in the future that the term data center is something that is more amenable to the residents and the body that governs them,” Czyzyk said.
“I will feel comfortable with the vote I cast on this ordinance tonight knowing full well that today I feel that way and that there’s mechanisms in the future if things do change, a process will be undertaken to remedy that,” he said.
There are dozens of data centers currently operating throughout the state with major hubs located primarily in North Jersey urban centers like Secaucus and Newark. But more recently, developers have been eyeing spots in rural South Jersey as the industry expands to meet growing demands for generative AI.
Developers and other data-center proponents say the facilities bring in tax revenue, create jobs, make use of old industrial sites, and put towns on the cutting edge of a hot industry, all without straining school districts or emergency services.
Opponents, meanwhile, cite concerns about pollution, noise, power and water use, and the impact on their electric bills. Some also say they worry the AI boom is a bubble that could soon burst.
As concerns continue to grow among towns across the Garden State, representatives from more than 60 environmental, labor, and community groups sent a letter to New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill last month calling for a statewide moratorium on the approval and construction of new facilities that use 20 megawatts or more of power.
So far in response to the public pressure, Sherrill has proposed a plan that would require new data centers to cover grid upgrades, utilize their own power generators, and publicly report resource usage.
While some municipalities like Medford have issued moratoriums on new data centers, no state governments have successfully done so, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
This Fourth of July will be unlike any in recent memory. As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, Philadelphia and the surrounding region are packed with celebrations — and fireworks displays. From the city and suburbs to South Jersey and the Shore, there are dozens of opportunities to catch a show.
Whether you’re staying in Philadelphia, heading to the suburbs, or spending the holiday down the Shore, here’s where to find Fourth of July fireworks across the region.
Wawa Welcome America: 🕙 July 4, 5 p.m. 📍Christina Aguilera and Philadelphia native Jill Scott headline a concert followed by fireworks, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Pa., 19130, 🌐 july4thphilly.com
Conshohocken Fireworks Display: 🕙 July 3, 9:15 p.m., 📍The fireworks will take place at Sutcliffe Park, but the borough is closing the park and surrounding areas to the public due to the size of the display. (They advise you to watch the show from another vantage point in town.), 🌐 conshohockenpa.gov
Earlier this month, The Inquirer dropped our list of the 76 most iconic dishes in the region, a handful of which can be found right here in the township.
Ranking at No. 61 is Santucci’s upside-down pizza, a pie so distinctive reporter Michael Klein said it helps give the region its own pizza identity. You can snag your own square pie with the sauce on the top at the outpost on Springdale Road.
Head a few miles down Springdale and you can order a panzarotti at Tarantini Panzarotti. The calzone-adjacent food ranks No. 29 on our list.
Also making the cut at No. 51 is gelati, the decidedly Philly spin on water ice (on its own, it ranks No. 2) and custard. Reporter Beatrice Forman reups the tastiness of a Dubai chocolate dupe at Cherry’s Ice Cream & Water Ice.
Leon Rose (front row, far left) played for Cherry Hill East’s junior varsity as a freshman.
Meeting Leon Rose today means knowing him as president of the New York Knicks, the team that has catapulted to the top of the headlines after clinching its first NBA title since 1973. But when many longtime South Jersey residents think of Rose, memories of a force-to-be-reckoned-with “gym rat” playing and coaching at Cherry Hill East are what come to mind.
Rose played under head coach John Valore from 1975 to 1979 before joining Valore’s staff in the early ‘80s while studying at Temple University’s law school. Even after attracting clients as famous as 76ers legend Allen Iverson and LeBron James, Rose could be found volunteer coaching at Katz JCC, where his 88-year-old father is still a regular.
The zoning board is holding a special meeting tomorrow night, which will include discussion about BAPS Cherry Hill’s application to expand its building. The Hindu temple at 1 Carnegie Plaza is looking to add a 15,350-square-foot second story for a gym and classrooms, in addition to a 2,930-square-foot lobby. It’s also looking to add 23 new parking spaces and make some changes to its existing interior and exterior. BAPS’ space now spans over 65,000 square feet.
Camden County military members, veterans, and their spouses can access free legal services at the township’s One-Stop Career Center starting this month. The first Veterans Will Clinic, offering last will and testament, power of attorney, and an advance directive, is today. The second will be on July 29, The Inquirer’s Sarah Nicell reports.
The community is mourning Robin Cogan, a West alum who became a Camden City School District school nurse and national health and safety advocate. She died of cancer at Cooper University Hospital earlier this month.
Camden County residents have reported a spate of roving peacocks in recent weeks. Reporter Sarah Nicell reminds that in March, Cherry Hill had its own rogue peacock sighting.
Heads up for drivers: Work continues on Kresson Road, which will have a partial closure westbound between Springdale Road and Ravenswood Way from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. through Friday.
Ready for spooky season? Summer just began, but Spirit Halloween is already preparing its return to the Plaza at Cherry Hill. (42 Freeway)
🏫 Schools Briefing
More than 500 East students graduated in a ceremony at Temple University’s Liacouras Center last week. South Jersey Media has photos from the event.
East has a relatively high summative rating, according to data from the state Department of Education’s annual School Performance Reports, which gave it an 83.98. The score factors in graduation rates, standardized test scores, student academic growth, and chronic absenteeism, among other things. West’s rating falls considerably lower at 32. (NJ.com)
🍽️ On our Plate
Soft-shell crab season is officially here. Looking for a spot to snag the sweet, briny dish? The Inquirer’s Michael Klein suggests trying the dish at Caffe Aldo Lamberti, where the presentation regularly changes.
The “lucky six” soup dumplings at Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao are the best dumplings in the state, according to a ranking from NJ.com. The outlet noted that they come in a rainbow of colors and are filled with ingredient combinations like truffle and pork, scallops and pork, and shrimp and pork.
🎳 Things to Do
🛼 Summer Kickoff Skate Party: Celebrate the end of the school year and the state of summer with face painting, a glam station, relay races, and hidden beach balls. ⏰ Thursday, June 25, noon-8 p.m. 💵 $5 admission 📍 Hot Wheelz
🗓️ In My Bag: Summer Social: This women’s-only event includes line dancing, singalongs, and networking. ⏰ Saturday, June 27, 2-5 p.m. 💵 $24.71 📍 Vera
🦖 Jurassic Park: Teenagers can catch a screening of the popular 1993 film. Registration is required. ⏰ Tuesday, June 30, 6-8:30 p.m. 💵 Free 📍 Cherry Hill Public Library
The front of the home features landscaping and hardscaping.
Located in the Barclay section of Cherry Hill, this four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom home has undergone a number of updates recently, including a full renovation to the kitchen. The space features stainless steel appliances and a subway tile backsplash. Also on the first floor is a living room, dining room, a den with a fireplace, and a bonus room. Upstairs there’s an office as well as all four bedrooms, including the primary suite with a walk-in closet. Out back, there’s a stone water feature and landscaping.
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Current and former military personnel can now receive free estate planning assistance in Camden County to help support their families’ futures.
The Camden County Board of Commissioners launched the new clinic last month, one of several no-cost legal services available to vulnerable South Jersey residents.
The clinic, currently scheduled monthly, gives active service members, veterans, and their spouses living in Camden County access to certain legal services at no charge. The county will provide a last will and testament, power of attorney, and an advance directive, which documents a person’s preferences for medical treatment in case they become unable to make their own healthcare decisions.
Sixteen veterans are signed up for the first Veterans Will Clinic on Wednesday at the Camden County One-Stop Career Center in Cherry Hill Township, said Morgan Callan, the county’s external communications manager. There is no current cap for how many veterans can participate.
The Camden County Office of Veterans Affairs is now accepting registrations for the second clinic, on July 29. Anyone interested should contact the office by calling 856-374-5801, or by visiting the office at 1 Collier Drive in Blackwood, part of the Camden County Lakeland Complex.
The Camden County Office of Veteran’s Affairs has partnered with Susan Purvin, an attorney from Gloucester County, to help provide the services. Louis Cappelli Jr., one of Camden County’s three commissioners, said in a statement that he hopes everyone eligible takes advantage of the program.
“Our veterans and servicemembers have sacrificed so much in service to our nation, so have their families,” Cappelli Jr. said. “The least we can do is help them get their affairs in order, giving them the confidence that their last wishes will be protected.”
The cost to Camden County for the program is $50 per will, $25 per power of attorney, and $100 per hour for every legal information session, with the total cost varying based on how many people show up for the clinics, said Dan Keashen, the county’s public affairs director.
Other counties in South Jersey provide similar services. All active military personnel and veterans in Gloucester County can receive assistance with a simple will, a legal document for those not looking to involve complicated estates or trusts in their end-of-life plans.
You don’t have to be a veteran to find free legal services in Camden County.
The Camden County Bar Association hosts Wills for Heroes, a small, volunteer-led clinic that provides free wills and estate planning documents to firefighters, police officers, and paramedics, and their spouses annually. The 2026 clinic, which took place in March, was full at 21 participants.
Kara Edens Graser, the association’s executive director, said she hopes to run the same clinic next year.
Plus, about 300 attorneys volunteer on an as-needed basis for the Volunteer UP Legal Clinic, a Camden-based nonprofit that provides legal expertise to those who need it. The nonprofit spent more than $300,000 in 2024 to provide legal services for tenants, criminal record expungement, estate planning, and name changes, according to its 2024 tax filing.
Volunteer UP also provides same-day eviction defense for tenants in Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem Counties, CEO Steven Salinger said via email.
South Philly-raised director and actor Amina Robinson is one of the region’s most celebrated theater makers, known for directing major productions including Fat Ham, Once on This Island, and The Color Purple. Now based in Cherry Hill with her husband and son, Robinson was just named the new artistic director of Norristown’s Theatre Horizon, where she’ll take the helm later this year.
When she’s not directing plays and musicals like this spring’s Ain’t Misbehavin’, the Temple University professor spends her days walking around Philadelphia and visiting family in West Philly. On her perfect Philly day, she takes her family for cheesesteaks at Jim’s before walking around the Schuylkill and, of course, catching a show at her soon-to-be artistic home, Theatre Horizon.
8 a.m.
I get up and I wake up my son and my husband. We decide to get ready and go to Philly for breakfast. We’re gonna go to Eggcellent Cafe on Chestnut Street and I’m gonna eat their truffle avocado toast — it’s so big and good. I’m gonna have their golden turmeric latte, too.
Families and friends gather from all over to watch the firework show over the Delaware River on New Years Eve at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.
10:30 a.m.
We’ll walk breakfast off by taking a nice little walk down Penn’s Landing, right along the water.
11 a.m.
After that, we’ll go visit my mom in Overbrook Park. I would bring her decaffeinated Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, that’s a must. Then we’ll sit and talk with my mom for a little bit. I would see my brother and my stepdad, and probably my nephew, and maybe my brother’s girlfriend would be there, but I really would be going to visit my mommy.
Ken Silver, owner of Jim’s Steaks, corner of 4th and South Street with sign on front of building.The restaurant is under construction after 2022 fire destroyed the cheesesteak restaurant. Photo taken on Monday, March 25, 2024.
1 p.m.
For lunchtime I want to go down to Jim’s on South Street and get a cheesesteak with whiz and fried onions. I probably need to walk off my cheesesteak, but I’m not going to walk off my cheesesteak. I’m going to let it just sit in my belly for a while.
3 p.m.
Then we’ll go out to the Art Museum area and chill out and walk around. Maybe we’ll have ice cream, there are usually ice cream trucks out there. I love walking around that area so much — I’ve always loved West River Drive and Kelly Drive. When I was a kid, I didn’t know that Boathouse Row was like boathouses, even though it’s called that — I used to always say, when I grew up, I’m gonna live in one of those houses.
Boathouse Row is relit with a new programmable system containing 6,400 LED lights that allow for 16 million color combinations in Philadelphia, Pa. on Thursday, March 7, 2024.
5:30 p.m.
At night, I’m gonna go to Norristown. There’s this Mexican restaurant on Main Street that’s so freaking good, Taqueria La Michoacana. I would definitely have their beans and rice, and tacos, and I don’t know what else.
7:30 p.m.
I would go see a show at Theatre Horizon. They want to foster empathy and edify the people who come to see the theater. As the incoming artistic director, I’d love to start programs like that to grow the artistic community there, all the while supporting the community that’s already been built there.
New artistic director Amina Robinson at an event for Theatre Horizon’s 2018 production of ‘The Color Purple.’
10 p.m.
I’d head home to sit outside and watch the cars go by, just like chill out and relax. Then I’ll lay on the couch and fall asleep watching a television show, probably a Lifetime Movie Network movie.
Seth Friedman was watching the NBA Finals on Saturday night in Graduate Hospital when he heard a familiar refrain.
It came from Leon Rose, the mild-mannered architect of the New York Knicks. His team had just won its first title since 1973.
Rose, 65, was asked how he felt knowing he’d built a roster that had ended a 53-year-drought. The Knicks president shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and pivoted to his players.
He praised their brotherhood, their grit, their empathy. He talked about their care for one another, and their selflessness, and how it allowed them to reach new heights.
Friedman, sitting on his couch next to his wife, began to tear up.
“It sounded like he was talking to us,” he said, “back when we were 13 or 14 years old.”
The setting was vastly different. Instead of holding two-a-days for high schoolers, Rose was standing on a platform in San Antonio, Texas, with a sparkling trophy beside him.
But the message was nearly identical. Friedman listened to it himself when he played for Rose in the mid-2000s at his local Jewish community center.
“He literally preached that same mentality,” Friedman said. “That family mentality.”
Leon Rose coaching at the Katz JCC in 2005. Seth Friedman is pictured in the bottom row, second from the right.
For decades, the future Knicks president was a mainstay in his Cherry Hill basketball community. He played under head coach John Valore at Cherry Hill East from 1975 to 1979 and joined Valore’s staff in the early 1980s while studying atTemple’s law school.
He moved on to work as an assistant coach through the late 1980s at Rutgers-Camden, a short commute from his day job at the Camden County prosecutor’s office.
He’d leave collegiate coaching in 1988, but Rose would always find time for the sport, even as he ascended the ranks of the NBA. In the 1990s, while he transitioned to sports management, Rose often could be found playing pickup hoops at the Katz JCC in Cherry Hill.
By the mid 2000s, he’d assembled a Rolodex of star-studded clients, including Allen Iverson and LeBron James. But that didn’t keep him away from the gym. For the better part of a decade, Rose served as a volunteer coach at the Katz JCC, preparing teams to compete in the Maccabi Games.
The Knicks executive has achieved a lot since then. But those who know him best say he is the same understated guy who’d wear baggy sweatshirts and run his team through tap drills and sprints.
“He was Coach Leon,” Friedman said. “He was one of us. Even now, you see him down the Shore, and you’d never know that he’s the person that he is.”
New York Knicks Leon Rose (left) hugs guard Jalen Brunson (11) as they leave the court following a Game 6 win against the Pistons in the 2025 playoffs.
‘A gym rat’
Valore met Rose in 1975 when he was coaching junior varsity at Cherry Hill East. The freshman was undersized compared to his teammates, but he played above his stature.
If there was a loose ball, the point guard would dive for it. If there was a charge, he would take it. Valore admired his toughness. So when he got the varsity job in 1976-77, he decided to bring Rose with him.
The sophomore made the most of his opportunity. Cherry Hill East was a relatively new program at the time and largely was viewed as a “doormat,” in Valore’s words. Rose helped change that, building an unselfish culture from the ground up.
He wasn’t a vocal leader, but he showed interpersonal skills that would serve him later on. The future NBA executive was direct and honest. He could have difficult conversations with teammates if he needed to about roles and behavior on and off the court.
Rose also set a standard through his style of play. Cherry Hill East was up against stiff competition in South Jersey from teams like Camden and Haddon Heights, which boasted players who were 6-foot-2, 6-3.
The point guard was unafraid to battle them.
“He was a player that had to compete harder and tougher than the person he competed against,” Valore said, “because he was 5-7, 5-8, 5-9. That shows you the toughness he had within him.”
Leon Rose at Cherry Hill East.
Cherry Hill East’s culture quickly translated into wins. When Rose arrived, the varsity team finished just above .500. By the time he graduated, it was one of the best teams in its conference.
But above all, Valore was most impressed by his pupil’s character. During a practice in 1979, the coach called his co-captain over. Valore’s wife, Joyce, had just given birth to their first child, J.C.
The coach wanted Rose to be the boy’s godfather.
“[Leon] was 17 years old,” he said, “and I saw everything I wanted to see. He was an exceptional person with relating to other people. He was something special.
“He went back to his dad and explained the situation, and his dad gave the thumbs-up. And the rest is history.”
After a few years studying and playing basketball at Dickinson College, Rose rejoined his high school team as an assistant coach in 1983. The 22-year-old was just as impactful on the bench as he’d been as a point guard.
Over Rose’s three seasons with Cherry Hill East, the program produced four Division I players. One of those four, Nick Katsikis, ended up contributing to Seton Hall’s run to the 1989 NCAA championship game.
Valore can see similarities in what Rose accomplished with the Knicks. When the agent was hired by James Dolan in 2020, the team was en route to its seventh straight losing season; “a doormat,” just like Cherry Hill East.
Then Rose came along, and everything changed.
“He was a gym rat,” Valore said. “He just loved the game.”
Leon Rose coaching for the Katz JCC in 2004. Ed Vernick is pictured on the far right.
From Maccabi gold to an NBA title
Ed Vernick moved from Philadelphia to South Jersey in the early 1980s, the same time Rose was coaching with Valore.
Unsurprisingly, the men became friends at the gym. Vernick was about to go on a trip to Ocean City and wanted a good place to work out. Rose overheard him talking, ripped off a piece of paper, and scribbled down an address.
Vernick had no idea who the young lawyer was, but he took him up on his suggestion. A few days later, while he was running on a treadmill in that Ocean City gym, he saw Rose walking by.
“He goes, ‘I just wanted to make sure you got here,’” Vernick said. “What a nice guy. I’m thinking, ‘Who does that?’ It was just one of those things that caught me.”
About two decades later, when Rose was starting to coach basketball at the Katz JCC, he asked Vernick to be his assistant. Together, they spent the summer of 2004 preparing Cherry Hill-area kids for the Maccabi Games, a youth athletic competition for Jewish athletes from all over the world.
Parents and players said Rose took this as seriously as the NBA Finals. He’d carefully craft his rosters, thinking hard about how each piece would fit.
Once the team was constructed, he’d spend July running them into the ground with many of the methods Valore used at Cherry Hill East: switch drills, sprints, tap drills.
Leon Rose coaching at the Katz JCC in 2005.
The week before the Games was by far the toughest. Players would be required to train twice a day and would arrive at the gym at 6:30 a.m. and return at 2 p.m.
“He got into us,” Friedman said. “But it got us ready. It got us prepared. It got us in shape. I hated it during it, but, looking back, those were memories I’ll never forget.”
This was a major time investment for one of the most high-powered agents in the NBA, but Rose was deeply involved. He continued to coach before and after his son, Sam, and daughter, Brooke, were eligible to play.
And he went far beyond what was expected of a volunteer. One year, Friedman said Rose took the team up to the Poconos for an exhibition game at Pine Forest Camp, which was known for its basketball program.
“He’s driving us up to play an exhibition game like it’s an NBA team,” Friedman said. “He didn’t have to do that as a coach. But he did whatever he could to get us prepped and ready to win a gold medal.”
About “80% of the team” came from Cherry Hill East, in Vernick’s estimation, and Rose often would be on the phone with Valore, asking about certain players.
Like his former coach, Rose gravitated toward toughness, and that style emanated from the teams he built. In 2004, South Jersey’s 16-and-under Maccabi team faced Washington, D.C., for the gold medal.
Leon Rose (in 2006) made his name as a superagent to the likes of Allen Iverson and LeBron James, but he did not flaunt that status to his young players.
It was a low-scoring game, one that came down to the buzzer. Washington was bigger and more talented, but Rose’s group challenged every bucket.
“I remember I could hear sneakers squeaking the whole game,” Vernick said, “and I just smiled. And I thought, ‘This is the way you play defense.’”
South Jersey fell, 42-40, but it won gold the following year in Minneapolis.
Rose spent six summers coaching at the JCC throughout the 2000s, winning two gold and two silver medals. He looked and acted like any other coach, donning Cherry Hill East basketball gear and sweatpants.
He rarely — if ever — talked about who he represented, or what he did for work, but the players occasionally got a glimpse.
When Friedman was a senior at Cherry Hill East, Rose arranged a surprise for his alma mater.
It was March 2010. The Cleveland Cavaliers were in town. After practice, their coach swung by to talk to the high school basketball team and answer any questions they might have.
It ended up being the coach who would lead the Knicks to a championship 16 years later.
“He had Mike Brown come over,” Valore said. “He was fantastic. Off the cuff, not scripted. He gave a wonderful speech to the kids.”
John Valore (left) and Zev Rose before a Knicks game in the early part of their 2026 playoff run.
Cherry Hill at the Garden
Rose and his family now live in New York, but they’re never too far from Cherry Hill. His 88-year-old father, Zev, still resides in the area, and is a regular at the Katz JCC.
Every once in a while, his son will send a limo to drive him and the 81-year-old Valore to Madison Square Garden. They were in the building for Game 4, sitting near the team president.
At first, it looked bleak for New York. The Knicks fell behind early and trailed by 29 points in the third quarter. But they came storming back in the fourth and completed the comeback on an OG Anunoby tip-in.
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.
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.”
Airbnb is activating its “anti-party” technology again for Memorial Day weekend as the global rental property giant doubles down on its no-party policies.
Temporary changes to the online booking system will deter potential “higher risk” bookings during Memorial Day weekend. At the time of publishing, Airbnb did not specify the exact dates and times the technology would be operating.
Last year, Airbnb said this technology deterred nearly 11,000 people from booking entire homes over Memorial Day weekend. In Philadelphia, 85 people were deterred from entire-home booking that same time period.
The system looks at the type of listing being booked, the duration of the stay, the distance from the guest’s primary location, and whether the booking is made last minute, to determine whether a booking should be deterred, according to Airbnb.
Airbnb has tied certain entire-home bookings to the potentially disruptive parties for which rental platforms garnered a reputation in earlier years, including in the Philadelphia region. Muhammad Ali’s Cherry Hill mansion, which still operates as a rental property on platforms like Vrbo and Expedia, was the site of countless “wild parties” that led police to visit the home 97 times between 2018 and 2019, according to an Inquirer report.
The anti-party technology deters potential house party bookings toward private room listing or hotels hosted on the platform.
“Our investment in anti-party technology, along with clear policies and consequences, reflects our commitment to supporting positive stays and countering the rare few who would try to break the trust our platform and local communities are built on,” said Rog Kaiser, vice president of fraud and safety operations at Airbnb.
In 2022, Airbnb made its COVID-era “party ban” permanent, making it against the rules for all users year-round to book entire homes solely for large parties.
Airbnb was also reminding parents and guardians that children under 18 cannot have Airbnb accounts and parents cannot book rentals for underage guests without the parent being on-site. Violating these rules can lead to bans and financial costs in the case of damages.
Since these measures were put in place, in 2025, less than 1% of U.S. rental bookings resulted in a report of a party to Airbnb, according to the company.
In her poem, “To the Chimeras of South Jersey,” Jia-Rui Cook writes of teenage heartache, ’80s movies, and the gulf between her American childhood and the world of her parents, immigrants from China by way of Taiwan and Singapore.
“… Acing / honors English but flunking Saturday / Chinese School: double cherries that ripen / when summer sun runs hot. This world / will feel less than whole for many years.”
The Cherry Hill-bred and Los Angeles-based writer isset to release her debut poetry collection, Soft Beasts, next year. The book explores Cook’s upbringing in South Jersey, her coming of age in Los Angeles, and the various bodies we inhibit in our ever-changing world. Cook is the 2025 winner of the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, a national prize out of Fresno State University that awards one writer $2,000 and the publication and distribution of a book.
As she prepares for the release of Soft Beasts next year, Cook reflected on her formative years in Cherry Hill, which shaped her career as a writer and figure prominently in her poetry. Cherry Hill “was kind of an amazing incubator” for young writers like herself, Cook said.
Jia-Rui Cook (right) and her father standing in front of her childhood home in Cherry Hill, N.J. around 1995, the year she graduated from Cherry Hill High School East.
Cook’s parents settled in Cherry Hill when she was a toddler and sent her to James H. Johnson Elementary School, Henry C. Beck Middle School, and Cherry Hill High School East. At East, Cook played lacrosse, worked on the yearbook, participated in the all-South Jersey band, and wrote for the student newspaper. Cook took an early interest in playing with words (her parents had an Inquirer subscription, and Cook was a habitual reader of the crosswords and comics page). A 1995 Inquirer story profiled Cook (whose maiden name was Chong) and her classmate Gina Kang, both star lacrosse players who were headed to Harvard University.
In Cook’s high school yearbook, she wrote that it was her goal “to write good poetry.”
Cook studied American history and literature at Harvard, joining the poetry board and studying under writers Seamus Heaney and Helen Vendler. She wrote a thesis on “Moby Dick.”
Cook always wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know if she could make a living out of poetry. After college, she ventured into another form of storytelling — journalism. Cook spent six years at the Los Angeles Times, covering everything from medical research to Asian-American life in the city. She left journalism in 2009, and has worked in science and health communications since, including a stint at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Reporting and science writing are grounded in third-person observation and objectivity, Cook said, and as she was writing about rocket launches and research breakthroughs, she missed the creativity that drew her to writing in the first place.
She wrote a few poems in the mid-2010s, and won the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize in 2013, but life quickly became busy with parenthood and work (Cook and her husband, Bryan, who is from the Main Line, have two daughters). It wasn’t until 2021 that Cook felt like she could pick up the pen again.
“You get on this roller coaster of going, going, going, and then when you suddenly stop, you think, ‘Wow, actually, maybe I’ve learned some things. I have some things to share,’” she said, recalling how it felt to return to poetry five years ago.
Jia-Rui Cook’s (then Chong) photo in her Cherry Hill High School East yearbook. Cook graduated from East in 1995.
So Cook began to write again — about people, animals, her childhood in Cherry Hill, the subtleties of the Chinese-American experience she came to understand while living in and writing about Los Angeles.
“I had to really step away and experience the world for a bit,” she said. “I had to go out and experience the world and to see it, and maybe try to tell other people’s stories for a while before I really understood, ‘What story did I want to tell about my own life?’”
Anagrams (words or phrases made by rearranging the letters of a different word) figure prominently in her work.
In her poem “Anagram No. 2,” Cook anagrams “Cherry Hill, New Jersey,” rearranging the letters to make sentences that resemble English, but don’t precisely follow its conventions. English was not Cook’s parents’ first language, and “there was always this kind of slipperiness with the language” in her house, she said.
“Anagram No. 2” is “playing around with the English language” in a way that echos the experience of learning it.
In January, Cook became a fellow with the Periplus collective, a mentorship program for writers-of-color. In February, she won the Levine Prize. Jake Skeets, the Levine Prize’s final judge, called Cook’s poetry “both wonder and wander,” holding “stark, living images of place” and teachings on how “to be alive in the present moment.”
For Cook, publishing poetry has been an opportunity to “create something meaningful” in a world that “feels under siege.” The immigration crackdown that overtook Los Angeles last summer weighed heavily on her as the child of immigrants.
“It just was really wonderful and incredibly meaningful to feel like I’ve been creating these little, tiny bits of beauty where I can in the world,” she said.
Winning Fresno State’s Levine Prize is poignant for Cook. Fresno State was the first place Cook’s mother landed when she arrived in the U.S. and was where she learned English. Decades later, the university is helping to publish Cook’s first book.
“It felt like a full-circle moment,” Cook said.
Though California has been her residence for decades (and Cook says she has decidedly fallen in love with Los Angeles), she still considers South Jersey home. It’s the place where she became a writer and where her journey of self-understanding began.
“It has to start somewhere,” she said of her book. “So it really does start in Cherry Hill.”
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.
