Books are back, in Greater Philadelphia and around the country.
The industry saw modest revenue growth the last four years in a row, an Association of American Publishers report found. Brick-and-mortars saw more than twice the growth of online retail in 2025, and hardcovers outpaced ebooks.
Jackie Botto looks for a book on the shelves while chatting with a customer at Capricorn Books in Jenkintown.William Thomas Cain / For The Inquirer
Many Philly-area booksellers said they’re feeling the surge.
But what are they reading? Sixteen booksellers told us their favorites of 2026 so far.
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor and The Princess of 72nd Street by Elaine Kraf — Ariel Censor, Little Yenta Books in South Philly
Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.— Alex Schneider, A Novel Idea in East Passyunk
Discipline by Larissa Pham — Richard De Wyngaert, Head House Books in Queen Village
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel — Jackie Botto, Capricorn Books in Jenkintown
Message to the Blackman in America by Elijah Muhammad — Shaykh Anwar Muhammad, The Black Reserve Bookstore in Lansdale
Most Ardently Yours by Freya Sampson — Charity Herndon, Austen’s Shelf in Bordentown
Partita by Barbara Kingsolver — Elizabeth Young, Commonplace Reader in Yardley
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.
SEPTA is trading Glenside Regional Rail riders three daytime trains for new off-peak options, more train cars, and new schedules aimed at reducing congestion between Glenside and Wayne Junction.
The Warminster Line, which runs through southeastern Montgomery County, is the only Regional Rail line losing multiple trains under systemwide changes that began on July 5 to make trains more consistent and prevent delays.
The new schedule cuts two weekday trains that left Glenside at 8:40 a.m. and 2:47 p.m. for Center City, and one weekday train that left Suburban Station at 4:53 p.m. toward Warminster.
The morning train cut leaves a 27-minute gap in service to Center City from Glenside, while the afternoon cuts each add five minutes or less to the wait for the next train.
SEPTA also added a train to the Warminster Line that leaves Suburban Station at 11:35 p.m. on weekdays, and a train on the West Trenton Line that leaves Suburban Station at 5:28 a.m.
The late-night train will serve airport workers, and the dawn departure is convenient for people who commute into the suburbs, SEPTA spokesperson Kelly Greene said.
The changes SEPTA made across the commuter rail system this week are aimed at improving consistency and reliability, the agency said.
“As SEPTA continues to increase the number of train cars available for service, trains will be longer and provide more space for riders,” officials wrote in a statement.
Between Wayne Junction and Glenside, SEPTA said, it hopes the new schedule will help “prevent trains from bunching together, which can cause delays.”
The 8:40 a.m. train from Glenside was cut to reduce congestion, Greene said, and had the lowest ridership of the trains running around that time.
Other changes affecting the Abington area include new departure times for some trains on the Lansdale/Doylestown, Warminster, and West Trenton Lines.
SEPTA put out a full list last month of what is changing on each line, along with updated train schedules.
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.
🍦 Stella’s Ice Cream out of Idaho (yes, Idaho) just opened on Front Street in Fishtown/Kensington, and Bea has the early scoop.
🍦 Winners, rocking a feel-good message, is new on South Street in Graduate Hospital. As Kiki Aranita says, Winners’ appeal is more than just the flavors, like Sweet Success S’mores.
🍦Our guide to our favorite ice cream is right here.
Critic Craig LaBan is back from his annual Jersey Shore exploration, and he’s shaking the sand out of his notebook. In Part One of his roundup, he heads to the mainland to find some gems. Read that here.
Looking ahead: Part Two, Craig’s reviews from Long Beach Island and thereabouts, will be online this weekend. On July 11, he’ll share his discoveries from points farther south in Part Three.
Ember & Ash on East Passyunk Avenue will be closed for an undetermined period after smoke and flames shot up through the ventilation last week just after closing time. No injuries were reported.
This weekend will see the debut of Broad Street Beer Garden at LOVE Park, the first phase of a planning reuse of the so-called flying saucer building at 16th and JFK. Here’s the long history of the city landmark.
We munched on fried silverfish that reminded us of French fries in Little Saigon, Argentine empanadas in West Philly, and a vegan po’ boy in Old City that tasted like the original.
Scoops
Intrigue! Albert Zheng, whose holdings include Javelin in Fairmount, is backing a yet-to be-named dual concept on the way to 808 Chestnut St., formerly a Dunkin’ Donuts. In front, the feature will be wagyu omakase, while the rear will be what he calls a Cambodian speakeasy. He says it’s six or seven months out.
Mylar Bar, a cocktail bar inspired by the spirit of South Philly’s Dino’s Party Center, is expected to open later this summer from hospitality veterans Liv Arterbridge and Gina Piccari. They bought the former building at Ninth and Morris Streets where Dino’s sold balloons, decorations, and party supplies for decades before it moved across the street. “We want the whole thing to feel like a party,” Arterbridge said. “Nostalgic, fun, a little silly, intentionally unserious — but not a theme bar,” Piccari said. Cocktails will include martinis, punches, and classic drinks, alongside draft beer and familiar favorites. A full kitchen, led by chef Colin White, formerly of Sally and Emmett, will serve shareable “party snacks” and larger plates. They plan to offer late-night desserts, so food will be available until 1 a.m. with the bar wrapping at 2. Arterbridge, whose resume includes Cry Baby, Poison Heart, and a.bar, met Piccari while working at Boot & Saddle, where Piccari was manager. Piccari is now behind the bar at Le Virtù.
Restaurant report
Sixteen restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and bars — including Lillian’s, shown above — are opening in July. Read on for the rundown.
Penny’s Bagels, on its way (for the last two years) to 212 Kings Highway East in Haddonfield, will hand out 250 red, white, and blue bagels on July 3 at the borough’s parade. The shop is eyeing an August opening, says owner Chris Fetfatzes.
Maru, a fast-casual Korean-inspired restaurant from David Backhus and the team behind the now-closed Oori, is expected to open in August in what is now Collective Coffee & Bakery, which Backhus also owns, at 2922 Conestoga Rd. in Glenmoore. Maru’s menu will feature Korean fried chicken sandwiches, wings, tenders, house-made mochi doughnuts, and specialty coffee, while continuing to serve Collective Coffee and honor existing coffee subscriptions.
Briefly noted
Ota-Ya in Newtown has announced that Friday will be its last day after 30 years with the retirement of owners Jeff Wong and Cindy Tam.
PETA is launching its “Nice Cream Trail,” highlighting 10 shops across the state serving vegan ice cream, and there are five local spots on the list: Dreams Ice Cream Factory in Glenside, Lu & Aug’s in Ardmore, the Main Freeze in Lansdale, Milk Jawn in South Philadelphia and Northern Liberties, and Scoop DeVille in Center City and Queen Village. The first Pennsylvania resident to complete the trail by visiting all 10 participating shops through August will win a vegan ice cream party with PETA’s “iScream” truck for themselves and up to 50 guests. Details are here.
Two local BBQ chefs, Matt Groark (Medford Lakes, N.J.) and Maxwell McGibbon (Newark, Del.), are competing on Food Networks’ Pitmasters, premiering July 13 at 9 p.m.
Diner en Blanc registration is still open. This year’s version of the pop-up picnic is Aug. 20.
Miller’s Ale House, in the shopping center next to the Home Depot in Springfield, Delaware County, closed this week after 13 years, while Fishtown is abuzz with speculation that Bottle Bar East, which opened at 1308 Frankford Ave. around the same time in late 2012, has closed. The phone is down, and owners could not be reached for comment
When is Adda ever going to open in Fishtown? — Rich C.
True, Adda has been a long time coming, since I initially wrote about it in June 2025 with an end-of-2025 target. Adda — from New York City’s Unapologetic Foods, whose establishments are acclaimed for their bold, no-holds-barred approach to Indian cooking — is now looking at a late-fall opening at 1700 Frankford Ave., the new building across from the Fishtown post office.
Corrigendum: Reader Stephanie points out that Kalaya is the third Philadelphia restaurant, not the second, to win the James Beard Award for outstanding restaurant, as I wrote two weeks ago. Zahav was the first in 2019, while Friday Saturday Sunday won in 2023.
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Pest control companies routinely use traps baited with rodenticide to kill rats and mice found in homes, restaurants, and businesses throughout the Philadelphia area, but a recent Rutgers University study suggests those companies face a gnawing problem.
Researchers discovered that mice in Philadelphia, Trenton, and suburbs like Levittown and New Hope harbor genetic mutations that shield them from standard chemical baits.
In fact, a majority of house mice sampled from Northeast urban areas, including Manhattan and other New York City boroughs, carried at least one mutation linked to rodenticide resistance — a clear sign that pests are actively evolving to survive common poisons.
Rats presented a different problem. While they lacked the chemical-resistant mutations found in mice, the study’s author suggests they possess the cognitive sophistication to outsmart and evade traps entirely.
Lead author Jin-Jia Yu, a postdoctoral researcher in Rutgers’ entomology department, said the findings indicate that pest control companies might need to develop different strategies.
Yu conducted his research with the supervision of another of the paper’s authors, Changlu Wang, an entomologist in the same department.
Published in the April issue of Pest Management Science, the peer-reviewed study was launched after frustrated pest control professionals repeatedly approached the Rutgers lab, reporting that rodents routinely survived multiple treatments.
“For the house mouse, we saw much more mutations rather than Norway rats,” Yu said. Norway rats are the common brown rat often seen in sewers.“Genetic mutation is not that special in these creatures. But we found that the house mouse shows a lot of genetic mutations related to rodenticide resistance.”
Rodents are a bigger problem in cities
This study focused on urban rodents. It found that mice in bigcities such as Philly and New York had a high frequency of mutations of a certain gene.
Rodents are a bigger problem in cities than more rural areas. Data cited in the study indicate that an average of 12% of all households experience rodent sightings. But major metropolitan areas reporter higher rates, including Philadelphia (29%), Washington (20%), and Manhattan (15%).
Yu said that similar studies of mutations in house mice and Norway rats were conducted in Europe and that research in the U.S. has been limited. One study in 2009 did find some rats in England with mutations that made them resistant.
However, Yu said there had been no such studies in the Northeast.
It has long been known that rodents developed resistance to the rodenticides developed in the 1950s. So more potent compounds were created in the 1970s and include brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone.
The poisons contain anticoagulants that interfere with the activation of vitamin K reductase (VKOR), an enzyme essential for blood to clot. Eating the bait leads to fatal internal bleeding.
The Rutgers team looked for mutations in the gene known as VKORC1 that makes the enzyme.
Pest control companies, as well as the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, sent the researchers the tails of caught rodents. Yu said his research was possible only with their help.
A rare mouse mutation in Philly
The researchers analyzed DNA from 147 house mice and 143 Norway rats collected in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.
Among house mice, 84% carried at least one mutation in the VKORC1 gene. Nearly 70% carried mutations known to help mice survive rodenticides.
Of 24 mice collected in Philadelphia, the majority had a mutation and five had two. One mouse had a rare mutation.
Of 20 mice collected in Trenton, 10 had two mutations. Lansdale, Levittown, and New Hope had one mouse each with a mutated VKORC1 gene.
About 35% of the Norway rats also carried mutations. However, scientists do not yet know whether those mutations result in resistance in the rats.
Mice, Yu said, might be genetically adapting faster than rats because they are curious and more likely to eat unfamiliar food, including rodent bait.
However, rats will avoid new objects, including live traps, and learn from their encounters.
In other words, not only aremice mutating to survive, but ratsmay be learning to avoid entrapment.
Shelly Gaither, 51, of Cheltenham, makes sure her three sons, ages 6, 9, and 18, get their meals while she manages with whatever is left over — if anything ever is.
“Oh, my God, groceries are too expensive,” said Gaither, a former data analyst who suffers from a disability that makes working difficult. She visits a food pantry regularly to make sure her kids eat chicken when they can. Her monthly SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits were reduced from $400 to $200 earlier this year because of changes to the programunder President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“I don’t think there’s hope,” she said. “I feel guilty for bringing children into a world that doesn’t want them to exist because the government makes cuts that take away their food and their healthcare.”
For people like Gaither throughout the United States, levels of food insecurity have seen a “remarkable” rise since the pandemic in 2020, according to a national survey taken earlier this year and released in late May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Around 10% of 1,300 heads of households polled in February reported a lack of enough food and said their children were missing meals, according to the survey. Nearly 16% relied on food donations. Among families taking in less than $50,000 a year, almost 20% reported being forced to skip meals or go without.
In 2020, when the federal government stepped in to help families at the height of the pandemic, just 4% of households reported missing meals, including less than 7% of families earning less than $50,000 a year, according to the survey.
At that time, temporary supplemental unemployment benefits, expanded SNAP payments, and direct government relief payments helped stave off hunger among Americans. Food insecurity increased after COVID-19 relief expired, according to the Urban Institute.
But the recent surge in hunger has also been attributed to the sweeping law Trump signed last year, whichreduces SNAP benefits and other safety net programs to help pay for his tax cut.
Findings in the bank’sreport also reflect Gaither’s sense of despair, a pessimism about personal finances and the overall economy among people with low incomes. That same group exhibits diminished expectations for finding a job and declining levels of consumer confidence, the survey says.
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According to thereserve bank’s report, non-white Americans have been especially hard hit. The number of such households that reported missing meals increased from 4% in 2020 to 19% in February. At the same time, the number of non-white people receiving SNAP benefits jumped from 14% to more than 26%.
Overall, the survey found food insecurity was particularly acute among lower-educated and lower-income households, as well as households with young children. Many families are experiencing financial stress due to the high cost of living, persistent inflation, and high interest rates, even as the stock market has been steadily rising, according to the survey.
Pantries struggle to keep up with demand
More people are flocking to food pantries, but they are not equipped to take up the slack of reduced SNAP benefits.
“Pantries across the state are in perpetual crisis mode,” said Stuart Haniff, CEO of Hunger-Free Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. Add to that the advent of summer, when kids are no longer receiving free breakfast and lunch at school. “Families must now provide those 60 to 80 meals a month,” Haniff said.
In Norristown, “immense need” has increased the number of people frequenting Martha’s Choice Marketplace, the largest food pantry in Montgomery County, by 100% since 2022, said Patrick Walsh, director of programs. “And I don’t expect things to get better.”
Food prices are also up 3.2% this spring over last, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures,exacerbating the issue.
In South Jersey, “we are seeing record numbers at our food distributions,” said Jane Asselta, president and CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey, in a statement to The Inquirer. “Life is getting harder to afford for more and more people.”
Matt McDevitt (left) and Michael Hickey load their vehicle at the Food Bank of South Jersey Thursday, June 11, 2026. The men are volunteers at the Temple Lutheran Church in Pennsauken and their food bank is open from 5-6 p.m. every Thursday.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Asselta said the Federal Reserve Bank’s report “mirrors” what her organization has observed through its network of 300 community partners.
“Hunger has never been higher,” said Pastor Sonita Johnson, who runs the food pantry at St. John’s Pentecostal Outreach Church in Salem City, Salem County. “Food prices are high, and the lines you see you would not believe — a 50% increase in people just over the last two months.”
Nationwide, between January 2025 and January 2026, SNAP rolls decreased by more than 4 million people — from 42 million to 38 million — according to USDA figures.
Between last September and April of this year, nearly 90,000 Pennsylvanians lost SNAP benefits due to new eligibility requirements stipulated by the Trump administration, according to an analysis by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS).
And between December 2025 and last month, more than 32,000 Philadelphians lost benefits, DHS figures show.
In New Jersey, SNAP participation has fallen by more than 50,000 individuals between March 2025 and March of this year, New Jersey Department of Human Services figures show.
The Trump administration’s SNAP changes include an expansion of work requirements for people who receive SNAP benefits and increased documentation requirements “designed to make maintaining eligibility increasingly difficult,” according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the largest anti-hunger lobby in the United States.
Deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement that Trump signed the changes to strengthen SNAP and to ensure that it is “sustainable for future generations.” She added that Trump was “elected to eliminate runaway spending across the federal government.”
William Meo works on the loading dock at the Food Bank of South Jersey Thursday, June 11, 2026. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
For people like Shelley Gaither, how her reduced SNAP benefits could be seen as part of “runaway spending” is tough for her to figure, given her needs. To survive this precarious moment, Gaither said, she will do whatever she can.
“We eat more vegetarian meals and I don’t buy my kids cookies or snacks,” she said. “If I drink enough coffee, maybe I just need one meal a day. This is our existence now. This is how we live.”
Chester City agreed to a five-year, $2.8 million contract with VMSC Emergency Medical Services, a nonprofit that started providing ambulance services in the community after the closure of bankrupt Crozer Heath a year ago, the city and VMSC announced Monday.
During VMSC’s first year in Chester, the Lansdale organization had a $470,000 shortfall, chief executive Shane Wheeler said. The $2.8 million is expected to support operation of the services — including the cost of serving uninsured patients — and pay for equipment needs.
The ambulance company has responded to 8,324 calls since May 2, but 35% did not require transport to a hospital, Wheeler said. In many cases, the ambulance crew fulfills the function of primary care for residents.
“We’re assessing blood pressure or helping someone with their medication, helping people get up” from a fall, Wheeler said.
VMSC’s accomplishments in the first year reducing ambulance response time to about 5½ minutes from more than 12 minutes, according to Wheeler.
The contract requires VMSC to assign at least three basic ambulances to serve Chester and its direct neighbors, with two staffed 24 hours a day. The organization also must provide at least one commander with training in more advanced treatment.
