In building the concept for his newest restaurant, Sam Li flew halfway across the world for a culinary research journey. He traveled across China, Japan, and Korea to study, and sample, the three countries’ ways of doing barbecue. It was at a Japanese yakiniku — or grilled meat — restaurant that he knew he had found his next project.
Li is the owner of OGYU Japanese BBQ & Bar, an upscale, grill-it-yourself Japanese barbecue restaurant that opened in Ardmore last month. The restaurant offers a tiered, fixed-price menu with a focus on “higher quality premium Wagyu beef.” OGYU is located in the former Iron Hill Brewery at 60 Greenfield Ave., which closed in 2024 before Iron Hill filed for bankruptcy last year.
Though OGYU has found a home in what was onceIron Hill, Li and his team have transformed the former brewery’s space into a sleek, club-like atmosphere, with black and gold detailing, marble-paneled walls, and an opulent, fully stocked bar.
OGYU Japanese BBQ restaurant is shown on Tuesday, July, 7, 2026 in Ardmore. The new restaurant by Sam Li offers a modern Japanese steakhouse experience with tabletop cooking, adding to Ardmore’s growing portfolio of restaurants.
He now sits at the helm of seven restaurants in the Philly suburbs, including sushi restaurant Osushi, with locations in Marlton, Ardmore, and Wayne; upscale Japanese restaurant Hiramasa in Newtown Square; and fast-casual chain bb.q Chicken, with two locations inSouth Jersey.
While Li has built his brand largely around sushi, he said he saw an opportunity in the market when it came to Japanese barbecue. There aren’t many yakiniku restaurants in the region, he said, and it’s a relatively new concept to many of his diners. People tend to be familiar with Korean barbecue, which leans more into marinades and flavors than its Japanese counterpart, which more often lets the meat speak for itself, Li said.
“We felt that it could be a new concept that we could bring into the U.S, and it’s something new to Ardmore,” Li said.
Restaurant owner, Sam Li is photographed at OGYU Japanese BBQ restaurant on Tuesday, July, 7, 2026 in Ardmore. His new restaurant offers a modern Japanese steakhouse experience with tabletop cooking, adding to Ardmore’s growing portfolio of restaurants.
Bringing a new concept to customers has meant lots of education, both for OGYU’s staff and its customers, who need to learn how to operate the tabletop grills and cook pieces of Wagyu to perfection. OGYU is an interactive experience, in addition to a meal, with flashy dry ice presentations and the challenge — and excitement — of grilling your own dinner in the middle of the table.
The main difference in the tiers is the quality of the meat, Li said. The introductory tier is best for diners who “just want to experience and explore what yakiniku is about.” The Diamond tier will be “the ultimate experience.”
OGYU Japanese BBQ restaurant is shown on Tuesday, July, 7, 2026 in Ardmore. The new restaurant by Sam Li offers a modern Japanese steakhouse experience with tabletop cooking, adding to Ardmore’s growing portfolio of restaurants.
Beyond what goes on the grill, OGYU offers a menu of à la carte dishes, including spicy kani salad ($9.95), wagyu truffle fried rice ($21.95), wasabi lobster tempura ($19.95), butter cheese corn ($9.95), and various hand rolls and sashimi. Li describes the à la carte menu as inspired by Japanese street food.
OGYU is open from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, and 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday.
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.
But the pharmacy chain’s distinct facade still dots the landscape — in suburban shopping centers, on the corners of congested intersections, sometimes even smack dab in the middle of city blocks.
Some of these buildings are still vacant, surrounded by overgrown grass and empty parking lots. Others are getting new life as dollar stores, medical clinics, daycares, Spirit Halloweens, and a Rally House sports retailer.
A former Rite Aid (left, rear) and former Wawa (right) sat empty in Collingswood in June.
The 8,000- to 16,000-square-foot shells are ideal for only so many tenants, real estate experts have said, and it is not unusual for these kinds of properties to take several months or more to lease.
Here is a look at what’s happening at a few local zombie Rite Aids:
South Jersey Rite Aids are becoming fitness centers
A former Rite Aid in Blackwood, Camden County, has been a gym for more than a year, and its owners soon plan to open a second location at another old Rite Aid in Cherry Hill.
Nick Bennett, CEO of the Bunker Fitness Center, said the owner of the Blackwood Rite Aid building approached him after seeing the gym’s content on TikTok. At the time, Bennett said, the gym was outgrowing its 3,000-square-foot space in Franklinville, Gloucester County.
When he went to see the 13,000-square-foot former Rite Aid in Blackwood, he said, it had already been demolished inside.
“It was just wide open,” Bennett said. “That floor plan works for our business model because gyms are open. You don’t really need to put up walls.”
Steve Cristelli works out at the Bunker Fitness Center in Blackwood.
Another plus, he said: Pharmacies have rows of refrigerators, which require electrical outlets, and the Bunker crew could use those outlets to plug in workout equipment.
The old Rite Aid on Black Horse Pike needed “very little” work, just paint and rubber floors, Bennett said, and was easily transformed into the exercise and recovery space he had envisioned. The gym opened in 2025.
“We’re smashing it,” Bennett said, with thousands of members who pay between $49 and $59 a month for the 24/7 gym, which has cardio and strength machines, weights, a sauna, and a cold plunge. He declined to provide specific sales or membership figures for competitive reasons.
The Bunker Fitness Center operates inside a former Rite Aid in Blackwood.
But Bennett said the business is doing so well that it is expanding into another former Rite Aid, 12 miles away in Cherry Hill with franchisee Jack Prendergast.
That 10,000-square-foot pharmacy shell at Brace and Kresson Roads closed more recently and needs a bit more work inside, Bennett said. When they signed the lease, he said, it “looked like a Rite Aid.”
Bennett said he and Prendergast are demolishing the interior, aiming for a September opening.
In Delco, a Rite Aid could become a township’s first car wash
The former Rite Aid in Newtown Square may get new life as a car wash.
The store at West Chester Pike and St. Alban’s Circle closed last year. In February El Car Wash, a Florida-based chain looking to expand into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, applied to open there, said Newtown Township Solicitor Rich Sokorai.
On its website, El Car Wash lists several other Philly-area locations as “coming soon,” including Cherry Hill, Drexel Hill, Feasterville, and Maple Shade.
The Newtown Square Rite Aid operated a drive-through, Sokorai said, and drive-throughs are permitted in that commercial zone. After a June meeting, the township zoning hearing board is considering whether to permit the car wash, with a decision expected in the coming weeks.
A Rite Aid with a “store closing” sign last summer.
If approved, it would be the only car wash in Newtown Township, the solicitor said.
Residents of the neighborhood behind the old Rite Aid have expressed concerns to local officials, Sokorai said, “because they fear traffic.”
Others have said they are looking forward to a new business moving into the vacant space on a prime corner, Sokorai said. Even before the Rite Aid closed last summer, its shelves were often empty, the solicitor said, and “it was dying a slow death.”
Temple University buys another old Rite Aid
Temple “T” flags fly on North Broad Street.
Temple University recently bought a second former Rite Aid on North Broad Street.
The school recently closed on the old Rite Aid building on the 2100 block of North Broad for $9.25 million, according to spokesperson Stephen Orbanek. He said ArchWell Health, which operates a primary-care clinic for seniors there, will remain the tenant.
“This property’s location, directly across the street from James S. White Residence Hall, supports the priorities of our campus safety and physical environment plan,” Orbanek said.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to indicate that Temple Health plans to open neurology offices at the previously acquired Rite Aid building.
Philip C. Ricci, 90, formerly of Conshohocken, retired Catholic monsignor, founding pastor emeritus at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in North Wales, talented pianist, singer, artist, and mentor, died Saturday, Feb. 14, of complications after a fall at Villa St. Joseph senior living community in Darby.
Ordained in 1965 by Cardinal John Krol, Msgr. Ricci was named founding pastor of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in 1987. Over the next 23 years, until his retirement in 2010, Msgr. Ricci worked many 16-hour days, made spiritual house calls on bicycle, spurred significant fundraising, and helped grow the Montgomery County parish from 600 founding families to 3,500.
The Inquirer wrote about his house calls in 1987 and opened the story with: “His charge is to spread the word of God, and the Rev. Philip C. Ricci does so in a most unconventional fashion — on a 20-year-old bicycle from Sears.”
His niece, Christine, said: “He could talk to anybody about anything.”
Msgr. Ricci lived and held services in a 200-year-old farmhouse from 1987 until the new church building was completed. Pope John Paul II elevated him to monsignor in 2003.
He was active with school activities, and his homilies were often about mercy and compassion. In 2010, he told members of his congregation at a retirement celebration: “We must always accept people where they are and then allow God’s grace to work in patient understanding.”
In an online tribute, colleagues at St. Matthew Parish in Conshohocken said his “kindness, wisdom, and steady presence touched countless lives.” Others called him “the perfect priest” and “the epitome of what a Catholic priest should be.” One friend said: “He was without a doubt the nicest person I have ever met.”
In a tribute, his family said: “His priesthood was not simply a role. It was the core of who he was.”
Msgr. Ricci first served in the 1960s as a chaplain at the old Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia and pastor at the Riverview Home for the Aged and St. Margaret’s Home for Girls. He went on to be assistant pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Ambler, St. Stanislaus Parish in Lansdale, St. Anastasia Parish in Newtown Square, and St. Margaret Parish in Narberth.
In 1974, he became spiritual director of the college division at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He also earned a master’s degree in spirituality from Creighton University in Nebraska.
Ministering to people, no matter where he was, he told the Main Line Times in 2010, was personal. “You don’t go out forming community,” he said. “You go out and form one-on-one. I can’t separate who I am as a man, as a Christian, and as a priest.”
The Inquirer published a story about Monsignor Ricci making spiritual house calls on his bicycle in 1987.
Msgr. Ricci played piano and sang before church services and after Communion. He directed choirs, and friends presented him with his own piano at his retirement.
He returned to his family home in Conshohocken after leaving Mary, Mother of the Redeemer but continued to assist others at nearby parishes and visit those in hospitals and nursing homes. “Father was a Renaissance man, an artist, musician, writer, deep thinker,” a former colleague said on Facebook. “He could speak about the liturgy or the Eagles, the football team or the band. He related well to everyone regardless of age, religion, or background.”
Philip Cosmo Ricci was born Sept. 26, 1935, in Conshohocken. He graduated from the old Conshohocken High School, took night classes at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and, inspired by his parents, entered St. Charles Borromeo Seminary to study the priesthood.
“When the Lord wants you, he gets you,” he told the Main Line Times. “I couldn’t fight it. It was always there.”
Monsignor Ricci’s house calls were featured in this 1987 Inquirer article.
He played piano in a dance band when he was young and enjoyed gardening. He was good at drawing and cooking. He followed the Eagles, Phillies, and 76ers, and invented a beanbag toss game the family played at gatherings.
It was fitting, his niece said, that he died on Valentine’s Day because he embraced love and service to others. “Faith for Uncle Phil was never theoretical,” she said. “It was lived. It was action. It was presence.”
In addition to his niece, Msgr. Ricci is survived by his brothers, John and Francis, and other relatives. A sister died earlier.
Elizabeth Killough remembers the beginning of Media’s Fair Trade history as follows: She was sitting at her desk at UnTours, an unconventional Media-based travel company, next to her boss and UnTours founder Hal Taussig.
Taussig, sitting in his beloved rickety desk chair, began to share a vision with Killough: What if his hometown of Media could become a hub for Fair Trade, a global trading system that prioritizes quality products and fair wages for farmers in the developing world? What if Media’s shops and restaurants could stock products made and sold with equity and respect?
“I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would be [like],” Killough remembers.
To humor Taussig, she googled “Fair Trade towns” (the internet was remarkably slow in the mid-2000s, so it took a few minutes to populate the results, she said). An email for Bruce Crowther, the father of Fair Trade in Garstang, England, popped up. Killough sent him a note. Despite the fact that it was 10 p.m. in England, Crowther wrote right back. He wanted to help make Taussig’s dream a reality.
In the months that followed, Taussig and Killough would help spearhead an effort to make Media the first Fair Trade town in the United States, a push that took the cooperation of local business owners, civic leaders, and borough council members. As Media marks 20 years of its Fair Trade Town status, Fair Trade products, and Taussig’s formidable footprint, can be found all over the Delaware County community.
State Street, near Olive Street, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Media, Pa. Businesses that sell Fair Trade products dot Media’s main commercial artery, a sign of the enduring legacy of Hal Taussig and Media’s Fair Trade advocates.
What is Fair Trade?
Fair Trade is a global trading arrangement under which farmers are paid higher wages in exchange for assurances that they will use eco-friendly practices, ensure safe working conditions, and invest in their communities. The trading practice seeks to uplift producers in the developing world, where environmental exploitation and forced labor can be common in the agriculture business. Common Fair Trade products include coffee, chocolate, and bananas.
Fair Trade guarantees farmers can charge minimum prices for goods, acting as a safety net against market instability. Some Fair Trade suppliers receive a “premium fund,” or an additional sum of money put aside to invest in education, healthcare, infrastructure, or business improvement products in their communities. In exchange for economic security, Fair Trade producers must provide workers with reasonable work hours, safe working conditions, and maternity leave, and are barred from using child and forced labor.
Killough’s email to Crowther set off a monthslong campaign to make Media the United States’s first Fair Trade Town, a moniker now proudly displayed on “Welcome to Media” signs on the borough’s outskirts.
Taussig had been thinking about sustainability in the global economy for decadesbefore Media’s formal designation. In 1992, Taussig and his wife, Norma, founded UnTours, an unconventional “slow travel company” that helped people connect to faraway lands through community engagement and sustainable tourism practices. Friends described Taussig as unique and empathetic. He was famously averse to making a profit, sharing UnTours’ returns with customers, staff, and, later, the UnTours Foundation, which invests in sustainable business ventures.
Taussig, who died in 2016, was “a really sweet man that cared about the world a lot,” said Ira Josephs, the executive director of the Media Fair Trade Committee.
Taussig and Killough began meeting with a group of stakeholders who shared the goal of bringing Fair Trade to Media. At the time, there was no organization overseeing Fair Trade communities in the U.S., so the Media group decided to “self-declare” under the criteria used by Garstang, the first Fair Trade Town in the world. They needed to persuade a certain number of Media retailers to sell Fair Trade-certified items and ask local schools and businessesto use Fair Trade goods. The guidelines also required Media to establish a Fair Trade committee; have an elected body pass a resolution supporting Fair Trade; and promote media coverage and education around Fair Trade.
A number of stores in Media already carried Fair Trade products, and many of its churches and Quaker meetinghouses used Fair Trade coffee and sugar. The working group made a website and brought on board Monica Simpson, a borough council member who helped convince the governing body to pass a Fair Trade resolution. The borough council saw it as a way for “this local community to make an international connection,” Killough said.
Once all of the criteria were met, “we just self-declared that we were the first Fair Trade town,” Josephs said.
At the time, New York City and Los Angeles were working on their own Fair Trade proposals. Yet Media, a 5,000-resident borough in the heart of Delco, beat them to the punch.
“It was rebellious,” Josephs said.
On July 12, 2006, Media held a public ceremony unveiling its status as a Fair Trade town.
Many of Media’s businesses got on board.
When Tara and Brent Endicott, the owners of downtown Media’s Burlap & Bean, first got into the coffee business, they knew they wanted “to feel like we were making a difference,” Tara Endicott said.
All of the coffee sold at Burlap & Bean is Fair Trade-certified and organic, a decision the Endicotts made in 2006 when they opened their first location in nearby Newtown Square,inspired in part by Media’s Fair Trade push.
Though their coffee-industry friends told them they were crazy for stocking only Fair Trade products, which are more expensive and harder to source, the Fair Trade beans won over the coffee purveyors and their Media-area customers.
Signage that reads, America’s First Free Trade Town, Media, PA., Wednesday, June 4, 2025. This sign is at N. Providence Road where it crosses N. Monroe Street.
Fair Trade in Media, two decades later
Fair Trade lives on in the stores, restaurants, and coffee shops that dot Media’s bustling downtown.
All of the international products at Earth & State, a pottery and craft shop, are from Fair Trade groups. Bittersweet Kitchen, a pizza and brunch spot, serves Fair Trade hot chocolate and coffee. Mom-and-daughter-owned yarn shop Homesewn sells yarn from Fair Trade Federation members and other companies that follow Fair Trade principles. Even Trader Joe’s, located in Media’s old armory building, stocks Fair Trade coffee.
On Valentine’s Day, the Media Fair Trade Committee hosted its annual Fair Trade chocolate tasting. The committee also hosts an annual juggling contest with Fair Trade soccer balls at Dining Under the Stars.
Fair Trade’s future is not entirely certain.
Fair Trade groups have come under scrutiny in recent years for corporatizing a once mission-driven practice. It has been hard at times to get businesses to splurge on Fair Trade goods, first during the 2008 recession and then again during the pandemic, Killough said. As rents rise in Media, there is a “constant turnover of store owners and restaurateurs,” Killough added, making it an ongoing effort to keep Fair Trade practices alive.
“It’s going to continue to require a lot of work, a lot of commitment, and a lot of education,” she said.
Last year was “the worst year financially that we’ve ever had,” Tara Endicott of Burlap & Bean said. Despite having the highest customer counts in Burlap & Bean’s history, high coffee prices and tariffs left the Endicotts taking home meager profits at the end of the day. They have thought about opening up their business to non-Fair Trade coffee but have not yet, relying on the hope that economic conditions will improve.
Ultimately, Brent Endicott said, he and his wife are proud to be in Media and to be serving Fair Trade beans.
“We’re thrilled to be able to do our part to help Media stay a certified Fair Trade town,” he 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.
Tired Hands Brewing’s Ardmore Brewing Company brewpub has been turned into a private event space, for now, as its owner navigates the future of the beer company.
Tired Hands’ Kennett Square taproom and bottle shop is permanently closed, owner Jean Broillet confirmed to The Inquirer on Feb. 19. Tired Hands’ Beer Park in Newtown Square also will not reopen this summer as the property’s owners are looking to redevelop it, Broillet said.
Tired Hands’ Ardmore Fermentaria and Fishtown restaurant and brewpub St. Oner’s remain open for business. The brewing company’s MT. Airy Biergarten is a seasonal operation scheduled to reopen inthe spring.
Broillet said the decision to shift to private events at the Ardmore Brewing Company location was born out of a number of factors: having two Tired Hands locations in Ardmore was confusing for customers; ongoing construction in Ardmore created a “prohibitive environment” for doing business; and the changing landscape of brewing has prompted Tired Hands to begin reimagining parts of its business model.
The changing face of Ardmore, and of Tired Hands
When Broillet opened the first Tired Hands location, the BrewCafé, in 2012, he said there was little by way of interesting, high-quality food and drink in Ardmore. At the time, he said, Tired Hands’ craft beer and artisan meats and cheeses stood in stark contrast to the Wawas and Irish pubs the area was accustomed to.
Ardmore “went from zero to 60 really quickly in terms” of dining and entertainment options, Broillet said. He added that Tired Hands was a catalyst for that progress.
In 2015, Broillet and business partner and wife Julie Foster opened the Fermentaria at 35 Cricket Terrace, just blocks from Tired Hands’ first location at 16 Ardmore Ave.
The Fermentaria was a major expansion for Tired Hands. It offered food options that extended beyond the BrewCafé‘s sandwich-and-salad-based menu, like steak frites and baby back ribs. It also quadrupled Tired Hands’ production capacity.
At the BrewCafé, Tired Hands’ brewers were able to produce 1,000 barrels of beer annually. At the time of its opening, Broillet anticipated that the Fermentaria would increase production to 4,000 barrels per year.
Tired Hands opened St. Oner’s in Fishtown in 2020.
In the years that followed, Tired Hands opened the seasonal Biergarten in Mount Airy, the Kennett Square taproom, and theBeer Park in Newtown Square.
Broillet said that “lots of valuable lessons, worldly lessons, were learned during that process” and that Tired Hands is doing everything it can to “prevent that from ever happening again.”
Ardmore Brewing Company, located at 16 Ardmore Ave. in Ardmore. Owner Tired Hands Brewing has transitioned the brewery into a private events space.
Changes in Ardmore, closure in Kennett Square
Though opening a second Ardmore outpost helped grow Tired Hands’ footprint on the Main Line, having “two of the same company” also made things “pretty confusing for people,” Broillet said.
In efforts to iron out the confusion, Tired Hands rebranded its BrewCafé last spring, renaming it the Ardmore Brewing Company, upgrading its interior, and adding more food and cocktail options while cutting down its beer list.
“The confusion was still there,” Broillet said.
Broillet alsobrought on a culinary team that had extensive experience with private events. They began to host a handful of events at the brewery — retirement or birthday parties, for instance — which were a success.
At the same time, major construction had created a “prohibitive environment for us to do business here on Ardmore Avenue,” Broillet said. Construction on the mixed-use Piazza project and Ardmore Avenue Community Center are ongoing, both of which are proximate to Ardmore Avenue and the businesses that operate there.
The brewery shifted to exclusively hosting private events in the last few months, a decision Broillet said he “couldn’t be happier” with.
The brewery owner said the Ardmore Avenue location will be open to the public again in the future, but did not specify in what form.
The taproom and bottle shop in Kennett Square will not reopen.
Broillet said he opened a Tired Hands outpost in Kennett Square, in part, to have a presence near his family members who lived there. Though it was a “fun” chapter, Broillet said it no longer made sense to operate in Kennett Square, where Tired Hands already has a strong network of distributors that can get their beers into people’s hands without making them trek to the bottle shop.
What comes next?
Broillet offered assurances that Ardmore Brewing Company will open up to the public again but said specifics aren’t clear yet. Tired Hands also plans on expanding its Mount Airy footprint with a permanent restaurant space.
For brewers across the country, the specter of people drinking less alcohol looms large. Sales of craft beer fell 4% in 2024, and there were more brewery closings than openings in late 2024 and early 2025, the first time in 20 years such circumstances occurred.
Brewerytown’s Crime & Punishment Brewing shuttered last April, with its owners citing a shifting culture around alcohol among the reasons for its closure. Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, a Philly-area craft brewing pioneer, abruptly shuttered all of its locations in September.
Broilletsaid that though the changing dynamics of the industry remain on his mind, Tired Hands was not “acutely a victim of that downturn.” Sales had been down slightly over the past few years, but Broillet attributes that more to having two locations in Ardmore than to the state of the industry. He’s bullish about Tired Hands’ ability to distinguish itself and sees excitement in the changes.
“Those sentiments have a way of just propelling you forward,” Broillet 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.
AmeriHealth Caritas, one of the nation’s largest Medicaid insurers, is closing its in-house pharmacy benefits manager, PerformRx, by the end of this year, the Newtown Square company said in an announcement to employees Wednesday.
Health insurers effectively subcontract with pharmacy benefit managers to oversee drug benefits. They have become increasingly powerful cogs in healthcare and face new restrictions under a law signed by President Donald Trump this month.
OptumRx, a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc. and one of the three largest PBMs, is scheduled to take over for PerformRx on Jan. 1. OptumRx already provides PBM services to the majority owner of AmeriHealth Caritas, Independence Health Group. Independence is best known for its Independence Blue Cross business.
“This decision reflects evolving market and regulatory landscape, not the performance or dedication of our PerformRx leadership or associates,” the AmeriHealth Caritas announcement to staff said.
Caritas said in a statement to The Inquirer that it expected a “limited impact on jobs, with many functions remaining in-house to support the same high-quality experience for members and providers.”
The company did not elaborate on the market and regulatory changes that precipitated the decision to close PerformRx, which Caritas formed in 1999. PerformRx has contracts in 13 states, including Pennsylvania and Delaware, according to the Caritas website.
When Justin Burkhardt heard that his neighborhood grocery store was closing, just months after it had opened, he felt a pang of sadness.
The emotion surprised him, he said, because that store was the Northern Liberties Amazon Fresh.
“Amazon is a big corporation, but [with] the people that worked there [in Northern Liberties] and the fact that it was so affordable, it actually started to feel like a neighborhood grocery store,” said Burkhardt, 40, a public relations professional, who added that he is not a fan of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s billionaire owner.
“I don’t feel bad for Amazon,” said Burkhardt, who spent about $200 a week at Amazon Fresh. “I feel bad for the workers. … I feel bad for the community members.”
Burkhardt said he and his wife have been forced to return to their old grocery routine: Driving 20 minutes to the Cherry Hill Wegmans, where they feel the prices are cheaper than their nearby options in the city.
Last week, signs informed customers that the Northern Liberties Amazon Fresh was permanently closed.
In Philadelphia and its suburbs, many former Amazon Fresh customers are similarly saddened by the closure of neighborhood stores where they had developed connections with helpful workers. Several said they are most upset about the effects on their budgets amid recent years’ rise in grocery prices.
“I wasn’t happy about it closing for the simple fact that it was much cheaper to shop there,” said Brandon Girardi, a 30-year-old truck driver from Levittown (who quit a job delivering packages for Amazon a few years ago). Girardi said his family’s weekly $138 grocery haul from the Langhorne Amazon Fresh would have cost at least $200 at other local stores.
At the Amazon Fresh in Broomall, “they had a lot of organic stuff for a quarter of the price of what Giant or Acme has,” said Nicoletta O’Rangers, a 58-year-old hairstylist who shopped there for the past couple years. “They were like the same things that were in Whole Foods but cheaper than Whole Foods.”
She paused, then added: “Maybe that’s why they didn’t last.”
In response to questions from The Inquirer, an Amazon spokesperson referred to the company’s original announcement. In that statement, executives wrote: “While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion.”
Workers could be seen inside the closed Amazon Fresh in Northern Liberties last week.
What makes a Philly shopper loyal to a grocery store?
Former Amazon Fresh customers say they’re now shopping around for a new grocery store and assessing what makes them loyal to one supermarket over another.
Last week, one of those customers, Andrea “Andy” Furlani, drove from her Newtown Square home to Aldi in King of Prussia. The drive is about an hour round trip, she said, but the prices are lower than at some other stores. Her five-person, three-dog household tries to stick to a $1,200 monthly grocery budget.
As she drove to Aldi, she said, she’d already been alerted that the store was out of several items she had ordered for pickup. That’s an issue Furlani said she seldom encountered at the Amazon Fresh in Broomall, to which she had become “very loyal” in recent years.
“It was small, well-stocked,” said Furlani, 43, who works in legal compliance. “I don’t like to go into like a Giant and have a billion options. Sometimes less is more. And the staff was awesome,” often actively stocking shelves and unafraid to make eye contact with customers.
“Time is valuable to me,” Furlani said. At Amazon Fresh, “you could get in and out of there quickly.”
Shoppers learned how to use the Amazon Dash Cart at an Amazon Fresh in Warrington in 2021.
Girardi, in Levittown, said he is deciding between Giant and Redner’s now that Amazon Fresh is gone. The most cost-effective store would likely win out, he said, but product quality and convenience are important considerations, too.
“We used to do Aldi, but Amazon Fresh had fresher produce,” Girardi said. “I used to have a real good connection with Walmart because my mom used to work there. But I don’t see myself going all the way to Tullytown just to go grocery shopping.”
Susan and Michael Kitt, of Newtown Square, shopped at the Broomall Amazon Fresh for certain items, such as $1.19 gallons of distilled water for their humidifiers and Amy’s frozen dinners that were dollars cheaper than at other stores.
But Giant is the couple’s mainstay. They said they like its wide selection, as well as its coupons and specials that save them money.
“I got suckered by Giant on their marketing with the Giant-points-for-gas discounts. I figured if I’m going to a store I may as well get something out of it,” said Michael Kitt, a 70-year-old business owner who has saved as much as $2-per-gallon with his Giant rewards. “I really at the time didn’t see that much of a difference between the stores.”
How Whole Foods might fare in Amazon Fresh shells
The Whole Foods store on the Exton Square Mall property is shown in 2022.
If any of these local Amazon Fresh stores were to become a Whole Foods, several customers said they’d be unlikely to return, at least not on a regular basis.
Natoya Brown-Baker, 42, of Overbrook, said she found the Northern Liberties Amazon Fresh “soulless,” and she didn’t “want to give Jeff Bezos any more money.” But the prices at Amazon Fresh were so low, she said, that she couldn’t resist shopping there sometimes.
Brown-Baker, who works in health equity,said she came to appreciate that it represented an affordable, walkable option for many in the neighborhood, including her parents, who are on a fixed income.
If a Whole Foods replaces the store at Sixth and Spring Garden Streets, which was under construction for years, Brown-Baker said the area would be “back at square one.”
Burkhardt, who also lives in the neighborhood, noted that Northern Liberties has a mix of fancy new apartment complexes and low-income housing.
“The grocery store should be for everyone,” he said. Whole Foods “doesn’t feel like it’s for the neighborhood. It feels like it’s for a certain class of people.”
A large new apartment proposal for 4889 Umbria St. in Roxborough has been altered to appease some neighbor concerns, with more brick incorporated into the facade and design tweaks to ease congestion.
The developers, Philadelphia-based Genesis Properties and Newtown Square-based GMH Communities, also reduced the number of apartments from 384 to 369.
But the actual number of bedrooms increased from 481 to 486, as they shifted to larger, family-size apartments.
“I love the increase of twos and threes [bedrooms] and the availability to families, which I don’t find very common as a developer,” said Maria Sourbeer, vice president at Mosaic Development Partners and a member of the city’s Civic Design Review committee. “The money’s in the studios and ones.”
The design team explained that the developers felt this corner of Northwest Philadelphia would have strong demand for larger units.
Last November, the project’s initial consideration at the Civic Design Review committee saw pushback to its fortress-like design.
Philadelphia-based Oombra Architects sought to soften elements of the project, increasing plantings and street tree coverage.
More brick has been added as a building material, in a bid to echo the older industrial buildings on the project’s southwestern edge.
A bird’s eye rendering of the new development on Umbria Street in Roxborough.
The 123-space bike parking facility has been moved from the third to the first floor.
The developers also relocated the parking garage entrance from busy Parker Avenue to Smick Street, which had not previously been publicly accessible. The project includes 380 spaces.
“[We] want to commend you in taking the process seriously,” said Ximena Valle, an architect who chairs the CDR committee. “We recognize that you could have come here with no changes made. … Overall, there’s a big win here.”
The Civic Design Review process makes recommendations but cannot force developers to accede to its critiques. The last time the Philadelphia City Planning Commission studied its efficacy in 2019, it found that only a third of projects adopted CDR recommendations.
A rendering of the Lemonte Street side of the project, the largest new apartment building in Roxborough in years.
Although the project offers nearly one parking space for every apartment — far more than they are legally required — the local community group still held concerns about the amount of parking included in the project as the bedroom count rose.
Otherwise, they largely embraced the changes.
“There are going to be more cars on the street. I don’t think there’s any question about that,” said Marlene G. Schleifer of the Ridge Park Civic Association. “But we were pleased with the work that the developer has done to comfort us a little bit and make it easier to swallow.”
February’s crop of restaurant openings includes two restaurants’ expansions to Narberth, a reopened brewery in South Jersey, a chic restaurant/lounge in Center City, an intriguing wine bar/bottle shop in Chestnut Hill, and two French newcomers.
Restaurants can take awhile and owners are often hesitant to pinpoint an opening date. I’ve listed the targeted day where possible; for the rest, check social media.
Duo Restaurant & Bar (90 Haddon Ave., Westmont): Brothers Artan and Arber Murtaj and Andi and Tony Lelaj, who own the Old World-style Italian Il Villaggio in Cherry Hill, are taking over Haddon Avenue’s former Keg & Kitchen with a pub serving a bar menu supplemented with seafood.
Eclipse Brewing (25 E. Park Ave., Merchantville): Last August, food trucker Megan Hilbert of Red’s Rolling Restaurant became one of the youngest brewery owners in New Jersey when she bought this 9-year-old Camden County brewery, open as of Friday.
Lassan Indian Traditional (232 Woodbine Ave., Narberth): The second location of the well-regarded Lafayette Hill Indian BYOB takes over the long-ago Margot space in Narberth.
LeoFigs, 2201 Frankford Ave., as seen in January 2026.
LeoFigs (2201 Frankford Ave.): Justice and Shannon Figueras promise the delivery of their long-awaited bar/restaurant, with an urban winery in the basement, at Frankford and Susquehanna in Fishtown. The food menu will be built around comfort-leaning small plates.
The bubbly selection at Lovat Square in Chestnut Hill.
Lovat Square (184 E. Evergreen Ave.): Damien Graef and Robyn Semien (also owners of Brooklyn wine shop Bibber & Bell) are taking over Chestnut Hill’s former Top of the Hill Market/Mimi’s Café property for a multiphased project: first a wine shop with indoor seating, then a courtyard with a full dinner menu, followed later by a cocktail bar/restaurant component. Opens Feb. 12
Malooga (203 Haverford Ave., Narberth): The Old City Yemeni restaurant is expanding to Narberth with lunch and dinner service plus a bakery, with expanded indoor/outdoor seating and space for groups.
Mi Vida (34 S. 11th St.): Washington, D.C.-based restaurant group Knead Hospitality + Design is bringing its upscale Mexican concept to East Market, next to MOM’s Organic Market. Target opening is Feb. 18.
Napa Kitchen & Wine (3747 Equus Blvd., Newtown Square): A California-inspired restaurant rooted in Midlothian, Va., opens in Ellis Preserve with an extensive domestic and international wine list in a polished setting. Opens Feb. 9.
Ocho Supper Club (210 W. Rittenhouse Square): Chef RJ Smith’s Afro-Caribbean fine-dining supper club starts a six-month residency at the Rittenhouse Hotel, tied to the Scarpetta-to-Ruxton transition, serving tasting menus through July. Now open.
Piccolina (301 Chestnut St.):A low-lit Italian restaurant and cocktail bar at the Society Hill Hotel from Michael Pasquarello (Cafe Lift, La Chinesca, Prohibition Taproom). Targeting next week
Pretzel Day Pretzels (1501 S. Fifth St.): James and Annie Mueller’s pretzel-delivery operation is becoming a takeout shop in the former Milk + Sugar space in Southwark. Expect classic soft pretzels plus German-style variations (including Swabian-style) and stuffed options.
Merriment at the bar at Savu, 208 S. 13th St.
Savú(208 S. 13th St.): Kevin Dolce’s Hi-Def Hospitality has converted the former Cockatoo into a modern, bi-level dining and late-night lounge with a New American menu from chef Maulana Muhammad; it just soft-opened for dinner Thursday through Sunday and weekend brunch.
Bar-adjacent seating at Side Eye.
Side Eye (623 S. Sixth St.): Hank Allingham’s all-day neighborhood bar takes over for Bistrot La Minette with “French-ish” food from chef Finn Connors, plus cocktails, European-leaning wines, beer, and a late-night menu. Opens 5 p.m. Feb. 7 with 50% of the night’s proceeds going to the People’s Kitchen.
Soufiane at the Morris(225 S. Eighth St): Soufiane Boutiliss and Christophe Mathon (Sofi Corner Café) say there’s a 90% chance of a February opening for their new spot at the Morris House Hotel off Washington Square. It’s billed as an elegant-but-approachable restaurant inspired by classic French bouillons/brasseries, with a menu spanning small plates and full entrées alongside Moroccan-influenced tagines. Expect evening service indoors, daytime service outdoors.
South Sichuan II(1537 Spring Garden St.): A second location for the popular Point Breeze Sichuan takeout/delivery specialist, near Community College of Philadelphia; this one will offer more seating.
March openings are in the offing for the much-hyped PopUp Bagels in Ardmore, as well as the long-delayed Terra Grill (a stylish room in Northern Liberties’ Piazza Alta) and ILU (the low-lit Spanish tapas bar) in Kensington.
Denise Bruce paid a stranger $75 to shovel out her Hyundai Venue, which was encased in snow and ice outside her East Kensington rowhouse.
“My car was really badly packed in on all sides,” said Bruce, 36, who works in marketing. “I just didn’t have the strength honestly to dig it out myself.”
The West Coast native also didn’t have a shovel.
So she was elated to find a woman on Facebook who agreed to dig out her compact SUV for between $40 and $60. After the endeavor took four hours on a frigid evening, Bruce thought it was only fair to pay more.
After Bruce forked over the money — digitally via Cash App — she asked herself: What should one pay to outsource the onerous task of shoveling?
Snow-covered cars lined Girard Avenue in Brewerytown on Monday.
While some shoveled themselves or hired professional snow removal companies with fixed rates, others turned to an ad hoc network of helpers who hawked shoveling services on neighborhood Facebook groups, the Nextdoor app, and the online handyman service TaskRabbit.
On online forums, strangers agreed to dig out the cars of folks like Bruce, who didn’t have the strength, tools, or time to do so on their own. Others signed up to clear the driveways and sidewalks of older people, for whom shoveling such heavy snow can increase the risk of heart attacks.
Prices per job vary from $20 to $100 or more. Some freelance shovelers are upfront about their rates, while others defer to what their customers can afford.
Higher prices now for ‘trying to dig through concrete’
Alex Wiles stands on North Second Street on Tuesday before taking the bus to another snow-shoveling job.
On Monday, the day after the storm hit, Alex Wiles, 34, of Fishtown, shoveled out people’s cars, stoops, and walkways for between $30 and $40 per job. As the week went on, he increased his rate to about $50 because the work became more physically demanding.
“At this point, it feels like trying to dig through concrete,” Wiles said. As of Thursday, he had shoveled for nearly 20 people across the city and broken three shovels trying to break up ice. He said most people tip him an additional $5 to $20.
“I want it to be an accessible service,” he said, “but I also want to be able to make money doing it and remain competitive with other people,” including teenagers who often shovel for less.
For Wiles, who works in filmmaking and photography, his shoveling earnings go toward paying rent.
He said he sees his side hustle as essential service, especially since the city did “a terrible job,” in his opinion, with snow removal.
“A lot of the city looks like a storm happened 10 minutes ago,” Wiles said Thursday.
Shoveling is “necessary and people are just otherwise going to be stuck where there are,” he said. “They aren’t going to be able to get to work easily. They aren’t going to be able to walk down the street.”
Some adults see themselves filling in for ‘the young kids’
When Max Davis was a kid in Hopewell, N.J., he’d compete with his neighbors to see who could shovel the most driveways during snowstorms.
Now, the 28-year-old said he seldom sees or hears of kids going door to door when it snows.
That was part of the reason Davis got off his Northern Liberties couch on Monday and started shoveling out cars for a few neighbors who posted on Facebook that they needed help.
A snow shoveler on Waverly Street on Monday.
Davis, a founding executive at an AI startup, said he didn’t need the money, so he accepted however much his neighbors thought was fair. He ended up making about $40 to $50 per car, money he said he’ll likely use for something “frivolous” like a nice dinner out in the city.
If there is another snowstorm this winter, he said, he’d offer his shoveling services again.
“Why not?” Davis said. “I’d love to see the young kids get out there and do it. I think they’re missing out.”
In Broomall, Maggie Shevlin said she has never seen teenagers going door to door with shovels, but some of her neighbors have.
During this most recent storm, the 31-year-old turned to Facebook to find someone to clear her mother’s driveway and walkway in neighboring Newtown Square. Shevlin connected with a man who showed up at 6:30 a.m. Monday, she said, and did a thorough job for a good price.
“I figured it would be somewhere around $100. He charged me only $50,” said Shevlin, who works as a nanny and a singer. “Oh my god, [my mom] was so thankful.”
How a professional company sets snow removal prices
A snow removal contractor clears the sidewalk in front of an apartment building in Doylestown on Wednesday.
Some Philadelphia-area residents, especially those with larger properties, use professional snow removal services. They often contract with these companies at the start of the winter, guaranteeing snow removal — at a price — if a certain amount falls.
In Bristol, Bucks County, CJ Snow Removal charges $65 to $75 to remove two to four inches of snow from driveways, walkways, and sidewalks at a standard single-family home, said co-owner John Miraski.
The cost increases to $95-$115 for a corner house, he said, and all rates rise about $25 for every additional two inches of snow.
Last week, he said, several people called him asking for help shoveling out cars, but he was too busy to take on the extra customers. He passed those requests to other companies, he said, and recommended they charge “nothing less than $50 to $60, because you’re dealing with [nearly] a foot of snow plus a block of ice.”
Miraski said he recommends professionals because they are insured. That’s especially important, he said, in storms that involve sleet or freezing rain, as Philly just experienced.
“You start throwing ice, who knows where it is going and what it is hitting,” Miraski said.
Professionals are more expensive, he acknowledged, but often more thorough. “Some of my properties we went back to two or three times to make sure they were cleared.”
And sometimes, regardless of who shovels, a resident can find themselves unexpectedly stuck in the snow again.
In Northeast Philadelphia, J’Niyah Brooks paid $50 for a stranger to dig out her car on Sunday night. But when she left for her job as a dialysis technician at 3 a.m. Monday, her car had been plowed in.
“I was out there kicking snow,” said Brooks, who was eventually able to get to work.
