Tag: Weekend Food

Facing mounting personal, legal, and financial pressures, acclaimed baker Tova Du Plessis has permanently closed Essen Bakery and said she is considering filing for bankruptcy protection, six months after she and her husband announced unexpectedly that they were “hitting pause for a few days.”

The four-time James Beard Award nominee’s shops, on East Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia and Berks Street in Kensington, never reopened after the announcement on May 31, which blindsided her estimated two dozen employees.

In late July, Tova Du Plessis told The Inquirer that she and her husband, Brad, were “navigating deeply personal challenges” and hoped to reopen in September. Meanwhile, disgruntled former employees and investors had been left in the dark.

Du Plessis said it took a long while before she realized that reopening was not an option. “I don’t think that I can really pull off what I need to — not just to be open, but to make it financially sustainable,” she said. “There always was that potential, but after what I experienced, I just don’t have the confidence, the head space, and the people in place.” She also said her struggle with narcolepsy, the chronic interruption of the sleep cycle, had worsened.

Du Plessis said she had explored different plans to relaunch or restructure Essen but couldn’t make any of them work. “I think I just needed to come to terms with that,” she said.

The early days

Du Plessis, who turned 40 last summer, grew up in a kosher home in Johannesburg, baking challah for Shabbat each week. She and Brad, her high school sweetheart, relocated to the United States while she pursued a biology degree at the University of Houston with a goal of becoming a doctor. Following a trip to Paris, she pivoted toward cooking. They headed to California, and she enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus in Napa Valley, where she specialized in baking and pastry arts.

While working at the Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa, she met chef Michael Solomonov during his visit as a guest chef in December 2011. Soon after, she and her husband moved to Philadelphia, where she worked as a line cook at Zahav before becoming sous chef at Citron & Rose, the Main Line kosher restaurant that Solomonov and Steve Cook briefly consulted on. She then served as executive pastry chef at the Rittenhouse Hotel.

In 2016, she leased a storefront on East Passyunk Avenue near Dickinson Street to launch Essen, which became known for its challah, babka, laminated pastries, and seasonal breads. Great reviews followed, including four James Beard Award semifinalist nominations for Outstanding Baker between 2017 and 2020.

By 2022, with Essen outgrowing Passyunk Avenue, Du Plessis began looking for a second, larger location. In January 2023, she signed the lease on a newly constructed building on Berks Street, a half-block from the Market-Frankford El near Norris Square, at the corner of Berks and Hope.

Financial strain

Tova Du Plessis said financial pressures began mounting last spring. She is facing a lawsuit filed by their Berks Street landlord over unpaid rent, and the space, just off Front Street, is being shown to prospective tenants. The landlord of Essen’s East Passyunk Avenue location has found a new tenant, Du Plessis said last week.

The Du Plessises are also in arrears on a loan repayment to Frank Olivieri, owner of Pat’s King of Steaks. Olivieri said he and his wife, Nancy Schure, had provided a “substantial” amount of money last year to help fund the Berks Street shop, which opened in November 2024 after nearly a year of delays Du Plessis attributed to contractor issues and permitting. Initially investors, Olivieri and Schure later converted their ownership stake to a loan, he said.

Olivieri said they had been customers of the Passyunk Avenue location when Brad Du Plessis contacted them last year to ask if they would be interested in investing. Olivieri said he noticed issues with day-to-day operations, and eventually, he said, “It just seemed like we were becoming more like counselors rather than investors.”

Later, Olivieri said, the couple ignored his advice and grew silent. “You have to have an open line of communication to be successful, and unfortunately that’s one of the components that was missing,” he said.

Employee fallout

It was the silence that distressed the idled Essen employees, too. They told The Inquirer over the summer, after its July report that the bakery owners hoped to reopen, that they were given no clues about the business’ future. Several former employees disputed the couple’s assertion to the newspaper that they had been taken care of during the shutdown.

In the days after the closing, one former employee said, workers messaged the couple to say that they couldn’t pay their rent and were desperate to learn when they would be able to work again. “After several promised reopening dates came and went with no opening, they simply stopped responding to staff,” said the worker, who asked for anonymity because they wanted to move on with their life.

Another employee, who had worked at Essen from September 2024 until the shutdown, aired her grievances in a TikTok video. Others told PhillyVoice, in an article published Aug. 13, that they were suffering and that the Du Plessises were blocking the accounts of people who discussed the situation on social media.

Personal strain

Tova Du Plessis said that just before the shutdown, she and her husband were “discovering issues in our relationship that we didn’t understand, and it was impacting the business in such a drastic way. Running the business was our escape from dealing with our issues.”

The stress in their marriage “was just magnified because we were running a business together,” Du Plessis said. “It was undeniable — it was a problem we had to face head-on.”

Initially, they thought that a brief shutdown would suffice, “but as we tackled those issues, we were discovering how deep and difficult they were,” she said.

The loss of income added further stress. Brad Du Plessis, who had left his job in wine sales in April 2024 to work with his wife, got a new job over the summer. “But then I had to face the reality that I didn’t have another partner or investor,” she said. “I didn’t feel I could do it on my own.”

Looking ahead

Last week, Du Plessis said she was attempting to sell all of Essen’s baking equipment. She said she believed that bankruptcy was the next step.

Despite Essen’s failure, Du Plessis said she remains proud of what it accomplished. “It made me really feel like I’m part of a community,” she said.

She said she wants to take several months before making her next move. “I’m still too affected by the burnout and the loss,” she said. “It’s not just giving up the business. It’s a whole bunch of family and relationships.” Du Plessis said she wants to return to baking, possibly even for someone else. Brad Du Plessis, who declined to comment for this article, is working again in the wine business. “He’s really in the position he should be in,” she said.

“For a long time, I was afraid I’d be looking at bankruptcy and divorce — and I’m happy to say I’m probably just looking at bankruptcy,” Du Plessis said last Friday. “To me, that’s a happy ending, or a beginning, depending on how you want to see it. I actually feel like this experience may have saved our marriage.”

With hundreds of reservations on the books and the holidays approaching, Rocco’s at the Brick Hotel in Newtown, Bucks County, abruptly closed last weekend. The closure, which left about 50 employees out of work overnight, was not the restaurant’s decision, according to the owner.

The sudden closure was prompted by a dispute between the steakhouse’s ownership and the property’s landlord, who also controls the liquor license, said David Gelman, son of Rocco’s owner Marc Gelman.

David Gelman said that Rocco’s was forced out of business because the landlord, Verindar Kaur, had filed a change on Friday with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to remove Rocco’s LLC, Marc Gelman’s corporation, from its liquor license.

The ability for Rocco’s to sell alcohol was part of the business’ operating agreement, in effect since the restaurant opened in January 2018. Kaur owns the liquor license while Marc Gelman operated the restaurant, paying her a fixed monthly fee and a percentage of proceeds in addition to what David Gelman described as “Center City-level” rent.

Contacted Sunday by email, Kaur said she was “unable to speak with anyone.” She did not reply to a follow-up email Monday.

David Gelman said his first inkling of imminent trouble was Thursday night, when Kaur emailed him and his father to say that she would terminate the agreement unless a new financial arrangement was reached by the following day. The PLCB confirmed to The Inquirer that on Friday, it received a notice that the license’s corporate structure and officer were being changed. This move nullified the management agreement, David Gelman said.

“This is not something we wanted to do,” Gelman said. “But we can’t operate without the liquor license [per the agreement]. There was no way to rectify the situation.”

Rocco’s last night was Saturday.

Gelman said that Kaur’s actions constituted a breach of both the lease and the management agreement and said his father planned to file a lawsuit seeking damages.

“There’s a clause in the lease that [operating a restaurant] is contingent on having a liquor license from her, so by interfering with that license, she’s breaching her own contract,” said Gelman, a lawyer.

The restaurant had “hundreds of reservations” on the books for Thanksgiving and corporate holiday parties, he said.

Gelman said the restaurant was informing customers that they could be accommodated at the Pub in Pennsauken and Library II in Voorhees, other steakhouses operated by the Gelman family in South Jersey. Those who hold Rocco’s gift cards can call Rocco’s number or contact it through the website for a refund.

Remaining inventory, including seafood, meat, and produce, was relocated to the Pub and Library II to prevent waste.

Rocco’s, named after the son of chef-partner Cole Caprioni, occupies the ground floor of the Brick Hotel, parts of which date to 1763.

The Mercer-Bucks-Central Jersey Eateries Facebook group was trying to help Rocco’s employees find new jobs.

Kaur previously operated the restaurant at the hotel, featured in 2016 on the Gordon Ramsay television show Hotel Hell, before Gelman’s company took over. On camera, Ramsay declared, “I want to shut this place down,” over cleanliness and customer-service issues.

“Ninety five percent of what was on the show did not happen that way,” Kaur told the website NewtownPANow.com in 2016, adding the producers drummed up drama for ratings.

On the eve of another Eagles-Cowboys game, let me tell you a few ways Philadelphia is superior to Dallas.

The sports teams, of course. There’s the downtown walkability, the history, and the overall gritty culture (as in “this might be the best show of my life in a room that’s maybe not up to code” energy)

Philly’s food scene is superior, too. And now we have proof.

The Michelin Guide’s awards for Texas were announced last month, and Dallas — how do we put this? — underperformed, not only against Philly but even against the rest of Texas.

Tatsu, an omakase experience, retained its one star from last year’s Michelin awards. This year, Mamami, a French-Italian bistro, scored a star. That’s two stars total for the Big D, compared with Austin’s seven, Houston’s six, and San Antonio’s three.

Philly was awarded three one-stars on Nov. 18 in its very first showing: Friday Saturday Sunday, Her Place Supper Club, and Provenance. (Boston received only one, but that’s another rivalry for another day.)

Apparently, everyone in Dallas seems to know that the food scene is lacking — even D Magazine, which headlined its Michelin predictions story: “Dallas, prepare to be underwhelmed.”

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While the post-Michelin food mood in Philadelphia has been generally celebratory, they’re crying in their beer in Dallas. Drew Stephenson, an observer of the Metroplex food scene who says he has eaten at all 18 Texas Michelin-starred restaurants, addressed the local shock, indignation, and outrage over Michelin’s selections on his Instagram, @drewthefoodguy.

According to Stephenson, the reactions show that Dallas diners and Michelin inspectors speak different languages. Dallasites prioritize vibes, service, decor, portions, and price, while Michelin judges ingredient quality, technique, cuisine personality, fair value, and consistency. “We’re just new to Michelin’s framework,” he said.

For the record, Stephenson — who calls himself “a very big Cowboys but not a proud one” because of the ownership — thinks the Eagles will win a close one Sunday.