One of the year’s more closely watched Main Line restaurant projects now has a name, a chef, and a clearer identity.
Old Friend, a contemporary American grill built around live-fire cooking, is targeting a late-fall opening in downtown Wayne with former Fork executive chef Sam Henzy leading the kitchen.
The 86-seat restaurant — 78 in the dining room and eight at the bar — will be at 166 E. Lancaster Ave., in a newly constructed ground-floor retail space at Lancaster and Louella Avenues that is part of the Apartments at Wayne Station. It is amid Wayne’s restaurant row, across from Maison Lotus and Rosalie, and just a few blocks from At the Table, White Dog Cafe, and the North Wayne Avenue dining strip.
Rendering of Old Friend, 166 E. Lancaster Ave., Wayne.Stokes Architecture & DesignArchitectural rendering of the facade of Old Friend, 166 E. Lancaster Ave., Wayne.Stokes Architecture & Design
Old Friend is the creation of Larry Kagan and Chas McFeely, who met in 1984 at Welsh Valley Middle School and later attended Harriton High. McFeely, an advertising copywriter who lives in Alameda, Calif., has family ties to the Main Line and returns frequently.
Kagan, who works in financial services and is a partner in the Campus sports complex in Downingtown, offered the first public outline of the project at a March Radnor Township Board of Commissioners hearing for its liquor-license transfer, describing an unnamed grill restaurant “that’s going to have the soul of a steakhouse.”
Kagan told The Inquirer this week that the name “old friend” describes his relationship with McFeely: “It’s someone between friend and family — someone you can pick up at any time, you can be yourself.” The name, he said, also reflects the sort of relationship they hope to develop with customers.
Kagan acknowledges that neither he nor McFeely is a restaurateur. They brought in Stove & Co. chef-owner Joe Monnich as a consultant to develop the concept and assemble the operating team. Monnich will remain in a leadership role while continuing at Stove & Co., whose holdings include Stove & Tap and Joey Chops.
Sam Henzy in 2025, when he joined Fork as executive chef.Courtesy of Fork
The connection to Henzy came through Monnich. The two met at Morimoto when Henzy was about 20 and, as he puts it, “green as grass.”
“Joe was the first chef who pushed me really hard, but he did that great older-brother thing of pushing somebody while being there to answer questions,” Henzy said. “He really took me under his wing.”
They remained friends as Henzy built his career. He did not know the name of the Wayne restaurant until he recently visited the space with Monnich and the owners.
“When they told me it was going to be called Old Friend, it just made me smile,” Henzy said, “because that’s how I think of Joe.”
Henzy, who grew up in Delaware, is best known locally for his two years as executive chef at Fork in Old City. His resumé also includes Middle Child Clubhouse, Vernick Food & Drink, Noma in Copenhagen, and Quince and Angler in San Francisco.
Henzy’s experience with live-fire cooking began during a six-month internship at Noma. He remembers touring the cutting-edge restaurant and encountering a Josper charcoal grill set up in a makeshift shack out back.
“In that moment, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m taking that station,’” Henzy said.
He eventually did, spending the final three months of his internship on the Josper. Later, he sought out Vernick Food & Drink in part for its wood-burning oven. His most intensive live-fire experience came at Angler, where he was executive sous chef and the cooking line had no conventional stoves.
“It’s just fires,” Henzy said. “It’s fires everywhere you look.”
Old Friend will bring him back to that style of cooking. Its open kitchen will center on a charcoal-fired Josper combination grill and oven, which Kagan calls the restaurant’s “engine.”
Designed by Stokes Architecture & Design, the restaurant will feature reclaimed mushroom wood, an oak bar, and an open, firebrick-lined hearth that will put the Josper in view of the dining room.
Kagan calls Old Friend a contemporary American grill. The developing à la carte menu will move from small and medium plates to larger-format proteins intended for sharing. The wine list will be compact and closely matched to the food.
Fish — including some dry-aged fish — as well as poultry and other proteins will be cooked on the Josper. Henzy gained experience dry-aging fish at Angler and wants to explore the technique further at Old Friend.
“I think dry-aging fish is both an underused and a misunderstood technique,” he said.
Old Friend also represents a move away from what became Henzy’s signature at Fork. Pasta may appear on the menu, but it will not be a focus. At Fork, he said, its popularity “took on a life of its own,” sometimes overshadowing the rest of the menu.
“I’m really big on never resting on my laurels and taking on new challenges,” Henzy said.
After years away froma live fire-fueled kitchen, Henzy said, “I’ve really been itching to get back into the flames.”
Elizabeth Monroe was living in New Jersey with her son in 2006 when she saw a listing in Bryn Mawr, and thought it might be time to go back to the town where she’d grown up.
“I hadn’t even gone inside it,” she said. “but I loved the Tudor look and the stone.
“It’s a soulful kind of house. A friend once called it my ‘sanctuary,’” she recalled.
One of the bedrooms in the Bryn Mawr home features large windows to let in the light. Brendan Farrell
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom house spans 1,762 square feet.
Monroe, an ordained Presbyterian minister who mostly worked as a hospice chaplain, said she had considerable renovations done, mostly on the first and second floors.
The house, has a gated front porch, original hardwood floors, and deep-set windows.
The kitchen has updated appliances. Brendan Farrell
The kitchen has white cabinetry, black granite countertops, and updated appliances.
The living room has a working gas fireplace.
Each of the two second-floor bedrooms has its own sitting room, which could be used as a home office, reading room, art studio, or playroom.
A working gas fireplace is a highlight of the living room.Brendan Farrell
The third floor has two additional bedrooms and a hall bathroom.
There is high velocity central air and 200-amp electrical service.
There is a private brick patio, a fenced outdoor space, and a detached one-car garage. It is walkable to the Bryn Mawr Regional Rail station.
The dining room can fit a table for six.Brendan Farrell
And “it’s walkable to the Wawa,” Monroe joked. And since the parking lot there is often congested, “I thought that this might be a selling point.”
The house is in the Radnor School District.
It is listed by Colleen Whitlock and Brianna Golden of Keller Williams Main Line for $699,000.
Restaurateur Bruce Cooper is big on dates. He opened Jake’s in Manayunk on Oct. 19, 1987 — Black Monday, the day the stock market crashed.
He’ll close it on Oct. 19, 2026, the start of its 40th year on Main Street.
In between was another financial crisis, an expansion that reflected changing tastes, a devastating flood, a pandemic — and nearly four decades in which Jake’s evolved along with Manayunk itself.
Cooper, 72, is selling the side-by-side Main Street properties that house what is now Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar. Before the final night, he plans to turn the wind-down into a reunion. Past employees will get a 50% discount on Sundays and Mondays, and the restaurant will extend its September restaurant week (Sept. 14-20) pricing through the final day. On Oct. 19, a party will empty the bar and kitchen, with proceeds going to a local charity.
“I just wanted to get to [the start of] 40 years,” said Cooper. “I wanted to get out two years ago.”
Bruce Cooper with his son, Bruce Joseph Cooper II, inside the wine bar at Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer
Cooper, a Culinary Institute of America graduate from Upstate New York, had spent a decade as executive chef at Lankenau Hospital before deciding that he wanted a restaurant of his own. He took business courses at Community College of Philadelphia and St. Joseph’s University and spent years looking at properties before a real estate agent showed him a former print shop in Manayunk in early 1987.
Cooper didn’t commission traffic studies. While walking along Main Street, he noticed Jaguars and other expensive cars rolling up to a posh restaurant called Jamey’s, which had opened a year and a half before. Otherwise, as he remembers it, “there were practically tumbleweeds floating down the street. You could find parking on a Saturday.”
That spring, Cooper bought 4365 Main St. and assembled a group of investors to open Jake’s, his then-wife Helena’s nickname.
Jake’s was conspicuously ambitious: white tablecloths, contemporary artwork, an extensive wine list, and Cooper’s refined cooking, including pastas from scratch. Dishes included crab cakes with raspberry butter, scallops with red pepper and papaya sauces, and duck breast with tangerine sauce.
The restaurant’s whimsical facade depicted an oversize table setting, with food spilling from a plate and wine pouring into a glass, surrounded by flowers, flatware, linen, and crystal — designed to suggest both fine dining and a sense of fun.
The exterior of Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar in Manayunk on Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. The bar is closing after 39 years.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer
Many early customers came from the Main Line, crossing the Schuylkill over the Green Lane Bridge into the former mill town.
Business grew quickly. When Cooper had put together his business plan, his accountant told him his projected sales were impossible for a 65-seat restaurant. Jake’s reached the projection in its second year, Cooper said.
By the 1990s, Main Street was crowded with boutiques and similarly high-aiming restaurants like Sonoma and Kansas City Prime.
In a 1998 review, Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan described a room of cushioned banquettes, contemporary design, and a stylish but unstuffy clientele. He called out the veal dumplings with caramelized ginger, seared tuna with sticky rice, foie gras with grilled mango, and the barbecued salmon — a signature.
Craig LaBan’s first review of Jake’s, from July 1998.Newspapers.com
And then there were the mashed potatoes. One version paired Yukon gold potatoes with buttermilk and roasted corn. Another, served beneath medallions of veal, was infused with lobster and cream. Patrons, LaBan reported, had taken to calling the latter “sex on a plate.”
LaBan awarded Jake’s three out of four Liberty Bells, the rating system he used at the time. “That’s when it really started to take off,” Cooper said.
Manayunk’s overall success brought its own problems. Friction between residents and the expanding restaurant and bar scene in the late 1990s led then-City Councilmember Michael Nutter to push for a five-year moratorium on new restaurants in the district.
Julia Child with Bruce Cooper at an event in 1996.Courtesy of Bruce Cooper
Cooper, who later served as president of the Manayunk Development Corp., believes that the moratorium lasted too long and helped push Main Street toward nightlife. He later helped develop agreements among restaurateurs, landlords, the business association, and neighborhood groups that placed operating restrictions on new restaurants.
Meanwhile, the style of dining that had made Jake’s successful was changing. White tablecloths were giving way to small-plate menus.
Which leads to another consequential date: March 14, 2008, on the eve of another financial crisis, when Cooper bought the former clothing store next door at 4367 Main St. and opened Cooper’s Brick Oven Wine Bar. Cooper’s is a markedly different restaurant, drawing a younger crowd and serving pizza, small plates, craft beer, and less expensive wines.
The dividing line quickly blurred, Cooper said. Customers at Cooper’s wanted food from Jake’s, and Jake’s customers wanted dishes from Cooper’s. The restaurants shared a kitchen, and Cooper eventually merged their menus and identities as Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar.
Head bartender Carrie Hice chatting with patrons at Cooper’s Wine Bar in 2023.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Then came July 17, 2016.
Cooper got a middle-of-the-night phone call that a city water main had ruptured outside the restaurant, sending water through the building and destroying the kitchen and the apartments above. He gutted and rebuilt, with business-interruption insurance helping carry the restaurant through a six-month closure.
The experience changed the way Cooper thought about the business.
“When you stop a business and then restart it, there are people who had been coming every week, and then they stopped,” he said. “They got into another routine. They went elsewhere.”
Even months after Jake’s reopened, Cooper said, customers would walk in surprised to discover it had reopened. “That’s when I started looking at things differently,” he said.
Cooper considered selling, but a real estate adviser urged him to wait as residential development accelerated in Manayunk and Roxborough. Three years later came the pandemic. His extended time at home spoiled him, he said.
Chris Campana (left), with help from Bruce Joseph Cooper II, choosing a wine from the wall in 2023.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Three years ago, Cooper moved to Delaware. His son, Bruce Joseph Cooper II, 37, now manages the restaurant day to day, while the senior Cooper comes north once or twice a week to handle scheduling, wine orders, and other duties.
In June, Cooper put the properties, including four upper-level apartments, on the market for an undisclosed asking price. Cooper said he wants a clean break rather than passing the restaurant to his son, though neither rules out working together on another project someday.
The closing will end one of the longest remaining restaurant runs from the era that transformed Manayunk. Pitchers Pub (1987) and Zesty’s (1993) are still at it; U.S. Hotel Bar & Grill has been open irregularly since Bill Green, the former mayor and congressman, reopened it in 1986.
For Cooper, that history encompasses more than the people who ate there. “When you look back, you think about the generations of customers —in a lot of cases, we’re talking about three generations,” he said. “But it’s not just the customers. It’s all the people behind the scenes: the banker, the produce person, all those people who helped you get through things.”
Bruce Joseph Cooper II, then 11, helps chef Bill Murphy carry food from Jake’s basement to be loaded into a truck for a 1999 holiday dinner by Philabundance. Vicki Valerio / Staff Photographer
Cooper’s son grew up at Jake’s, handing out cookies at holiday meals his father helped organize through North Light Community Center. He joined the restaurant full-time during the pandemic, starting as a food runner and eventually taking over management.
Purveyors and other restaurateurs have approached Cooper Jr. with potential job offers, he said, and he would consider working with whoever buys the properties. He once imagined taking over Jake’s himself but is no longer certain that is what he wants.
His father understands.
The restaurant business, the senior Cooper said, demands long hours and constant attention. One lesson he would give a new restaurateur is the one that helped him survive both the flood and the pandemic: Own the real estate if you can.
“If I didn’t own this real estate during COVID, I would have owed the landlord,” he said.
Cooper has begun informally advising other restaurateurs about the economics of getting into, staying in, and getting out of the business. After nearly four decades, he said, he is ready to find out what comes next.
His son thinks about Jake’s in more personal terms.
“Even in my almost five years working as a manager here, I’ve seen kids go from being in the womb to toddlers, and they know me as Uncle Bruce,” the younger Cooper said. “That’s one of the greatest feelings in the world — being able to say, ‘I knew you before you were born, little one.’”
Bruce Joseph Cooper II (left), general manager, and Bruce Cooper (right), owner, inside Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar in Manayunk.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer
Three properties that span 27 acres and include two homes, two pools, and a two-story barn are for sale for $8.95 million in Willistown Township, Chester County.
The three parcels, situated among the area’s pastures and horse farms, together form the largest package of land currently for sale along the Main Line whose use is not restricted by a conservancy, according to listing agent Karen Strid of Compass Real Estate.
“Each parcel is worth something, but together they’re worth so much more,” Strid said.
That a buyer can do whatever they want on the land, including building more homes, “is what makes [the listing] so rare,” she said.
“It’s such a special purchase for someone who really understands the area,” Strid said.
The three combined parcels for sale at 416, 418, and 420 Dutton Mill Rd., spanning 27 acres in Willistown Township, are outlined in red.Billy Kyle
Willistown Township, which neighbors Malvern Borough and includes the 19th-century village of Sugartown, is a desirable location for people who want land and a more rural feel and also access to mountains, beaches, and major cities, Strid said.
These parcels are “appealing to the people who want privacy and can have whatever they want and don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “You’re really close to everything, but you feel like you’re in your own world.”
The seller owns all three parcels, which together are called Sugartown Springs Farm. Strid said it would make a good family compound. Across the parcels, buildings and property features are “spread out in a really nice way,” she said.
The parcels were privately listed for sale on the Compass and Redfin platforms the second week of August.
Two homes and a two-story barn
At 418 Dutton Mill Rd., a stone main house dating to the mid-1700s offers four bedrooms, four full bathrooms, and one half bathroom. The primary en suite bedroom includes a fireplace, soaking tub, shower, and double vanities.
The stone main house at 418 Dutton Mill Rd. has four bedrooms and a two-story solarium that serves as the dining room.Billy Kyle
The 7,559-square-foot house features interior stone walls, exposed timber beams, hardwood floors, and more fireplaces throughout. The two-story solarium serves as the dining room and highlights views of the grounds. The home also has an elevator.
The 10-acre property includes an in-ground pool and a spring-fed pond. A detached garage off the circular driveway can fit six vehicles and also includes a full bathroom and a second laundry room.
The 10-acre property at 418 Dutton Mill Rd. includes an in-ground pool and a detached garage that can fit six vehicles.Billy Kyle
To the right of the main house is a two-story timber-frame barn at 420 Dutton Mill Rd. The barn was once used as an art gallery for Andrew Wyeth’s paintings.
The structure features a glass atrium, a room that could be a bedroom or office, 1½ bathrooms, a kitchenette, and multifunctional space. The upper level has beamed ceilings and gathering spaces.
The upper level of the barn at 420 Dutton Mill Rd. can be used as a gathering space.Billy Kyle
The property includes a stone-walled courtyard and spans 12.8 acres.
These two parcels are listed for sale for a combined $5.975 million.
A second home at 416 Dutton Mill Rd. is listed for sale for $2.975 million. The Colonial spans 6,032 square feet and was built in 1963.
The home has six bedrooms, three full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, formal living and dining rooms, and a walkout finished basement. It features fireplaces and brick wall accents and has a finished attic.
The 4.2-acre property includes a rear stone patio, a detached three-car garage, an in-ground pool, and a timber-frame barn built in 2024.
The home for sale at 416 Dutton Mill Rd. in Willistown Township features an in-ground pool, a timber-frame barn, and a detached three-car garage.Billy Kyle
This home is currently being rented for $9,000 per month under a lease that ends in early 2028.
Strid said standing on Sugartown Springs Farm highlights why people value the lifestyle it represents.
“It’s so serene and calm and beautiful,” she said.
Taco Heart, South Philly’s hub for Texas-style breakfast tacos, is set to open in the Ardmore Farmers Market in October, bringing its fresh flour tortillas and Tex-Mex fare to the Main Line.
Nano Wheedan, Taco Heart’s owner, said coming to Ardmore “seemed like the perfect next step for us” as the restaurant navigates its first expansion beyond South Philadelphia.
Taco Heart’s menu is anchored by the tastes and textures familiar to anyone who’s stepped into a Texas-style taco restaurant before: egg, cheese, avocado, jalapeño, queso, refried beans, pico de gallo, steak, brisket. In addition to tacos, customers can order bowls served with house-made chips, quesadillas, sides of queso, desserts, and beverages, such as cucumber limeade and cold-pressed juice.
Wheedan and his wife, Carinne, a Texas native, relocated to Philly during the pandemic. It was during the height of lockdowns that Wheedan set up a stand outside of his South Philly home, hawking breakfast tacos to neighbors. The ad hoc taco project later got the name Nano’s Tortillas, and Wheedan found a spot in the Bok Building, where he could cook and serve pickup orders. During this time, Wheedan also became an investor and business manager at Korshak’s namesake bagel joint, Korshak Bagels. (Korshak is now working on building Korshak Picnic Provisions, a corner shop built around hot dogs and house-made sourdough biscuits.)
In 2022, Taco Heart opened its doors in a polychromatic corner building on Seventh Street and Passyunk Avenue.
Nano Wheedan, owner/chef Taco Heart, in 2022. Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
For Wheedan, introducing Philadelphians to the Texas-style breakfast taco has been a tall task, but he’s been heartened by the reception, both from Philly locals and transplants from the Lone Star State, or “Tex-pats,” as he calls them.
“There’s so many people with a connection to this food who have been missing it, and I am so grateful and moved when Texans tell me that they’ve finally found a piece of home at Taco Heart,” he said.
It was in the last year that Wheedan felt Taco Heart finally “had its feet under itself,” and he began to think about what it would mean if he “took advantage of economies of scale” and opened a second location, using Taco Heart’s South Philly flagship as a prep kitchen at night. He was looking into opening his next location in the River Wards when the Ardmore Farmers Market approached him. The market offered a fully-functional kitchen setup, a solid base of foot traffic, and exciting culinary neighbors. He signed on.
Taco Heart’s Morning Bowl. Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Large swaths of the market, located at Suburban Square, were left vacant earlier this year after Di Bruno Brothers shuttered multiple locations, including its outpost in Ardmore.
Wheedan is planning to serve most of the same items in Ardmore as he does in South Philly. While some items like salsas, quesos, and refried beans may be prepared in South Philly and transported to Ardmore, Taco Heart’s signature flour tortillas will still be made fresh.
Wheedan also hopes the expansion will allow Taco Heart to move into the world of catering: In Austin, getting breakfast tacos for the office is the equivalent of the East Coast bagel breakfast, he says.
Taco Heart is set to open Oct. 5 at the Ardmore Farmers Market (120 Coulter Ave.).
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A former cardiac thoracic surgeon at one of Main Line Health’s flagship programs says in a federal lawsuit that he was fired after reporting a series of bad patient outcomes.
Gianluca Torregrossa accuses the nonprofit hospital system in the Philadelphia suburbs of failing to thoroughly investigate a pattern of complications among the patients of another senior surgeon, including one instance that led to a heart transplant.
The Italian physician attempted to have the cases reviewed multiple times during his tenure, which was just short of five years, but instead Torregrossa was marginalized by hospital leadership, suspended, and eventually terminated before the end of his contract, according to the suit.
The termination caused issues with the physician’s visa, which required him to return to Italy without his wife and daughter while he got his new visa in order, according to the complaint. Torregrossa, who began working at Cleveland Clinic in June, says he also lost wages during the three-month period and his reputation suffered.
“Cardiac surgery is a small professional field, and news of his suspension and termination spread nationally and internationally, creating questions about his professional standing despite his clinical outcomes and subsequent employment by Cleveland Clinic,” the suit says.
Torregrossa’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit, filed July 31 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, names only Main Line Health as a defendant. The health system declined to comment on the active litigation.
“Main Line Health’s Robotic Cardiac Vascularization Program is an important part of our commitment to providing advanced surgical care,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “The program helps ensure patients have access to specialized surgical expertise and innovative, minimally invasive treatment options close to home.”
Torregrossa was recruited by the Montgomery County hospital system in 2021 to assist in expanding the robotic heart surgery programbased at Lankenau Medical Center, the lawsuit says.
The opportunity to join Main Line Health was lucrative. The surgeon signed a five-year contract starting at $800,000 a year, plus bonus, according to the lawsuit.
Main Line Health is a national leader in a robotic procedure to replace a clogged artery with a new one, known as coronary artery bypass graft, which is the most commonly performed heart surgery in the United States. But at Main Line it is often performed in an uncommon way.
Shortly after joining Main Line Health, Torregrossa became concerned about the outcomes of patients whom Sutter operated on robotically that the physician believed were preventable, the suit said.
Torregrossa asked in 2023 for a review of seven of Sutter’s cases, the complaint says, but a team discussed them “only superficially, no meaningful follow-up was initiated, and the pattern of complications involving a single surgeon was not examined.”
The physician continued to raise concerns over allegedly preventable complications through 2025, as well as ethical breaches in patient assignment at the program, according to the complaint.
The Inquirer was unable to reach Sutter, who retired in July, based on publicly available records.
Michael Carboine (left), physician assistant, and Jeff Roman (right), scrub nurse, watches the monitor as lead surgeon Francis Sutter moves the robotic instruments in the patient’s heart on Monday, June 26, 2023. Lankenau Hospital, part of Main Line Health, uses robotic coronary bypass surgeries at a higher percent than other hospitals.Allie Ippolito / Staff Photographer
Following his internal reports, the suit says, Torregrossa was marginalized by leaders of the program and hospital.
Human resources opened an investigation into Torregrossa based on a comment he had made in a brief recruitment interview, according to the complaint. The documents do not repeat the comment or provide more context to what was said.
“That HR event reflected a broader pattern in which routine professional interactions involving Dr. Torregrossa were escalated against him, while more serious concerns involving others, like patient safety, were not meaningfully investigated,” the lawsuit says.
In November 2025, the hospital system told Torregrossa that his contract would not be renewed past June 30, the suit says.
Torregrossa continued to push internally for reviews, but his pleas fell on deaf ears, according to the complaint. In January, he submitted an external patient safety report to the Pennsylvania Licensing System and the Joint Commission, a hospital accreditation organization, which conducted a surprise visit to Lankenau shortly after.
The surgeon also circulated an anonymous letter about the Sutter cases in question, the suit says without saying who were the recipients.
Sutter’s medical license is active and Pennsylvania Department of State records show no disciplinary history. Lankenau has passed a series of Pennsylvania Department of Health inspections since January that found the hospital in compliance.
Main Line Health placed Torregrossa on administrative leave in February and barred him from accessing the system’s hospitals and clinics. The system accused him of disparaging the health system during a presentation and engaging in unprofessional conduct.
The lawsuit says both excuses were false and pretextual, leading to his March termination.
The complaint accuses Main Line Health of violating the Pennsylvania whistleblower protection law and breaching his employment agreement. It asks for damages in an unspecified amount greater than $75,000.
“Being removed from practice for approximately three months deprived him of the ability to operate, teach, proctor, maintain case volume, and continue refining a rare and demanding surgical technique,” the lawsuit says.
Tori Bauver was sitting at home on July 11 when the sky outside of the Wyndon Apartments in Wynnewood began to darken. Bauver watched the clouds roll in, then the rain come, blowing “literally sideways” outside her window. She remembers leaning in to see the darkening landscape and noticing that rain had begun to penetrate her windows. Then the “outside went stark white” and water started pooling on her windowsills.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is gonna flood. This apartment’s gonna flood,’” she said.
The light fixture above Bauver’s bed filled with water, then poured over the edges. The ceilings began to leak, then one by one, they collapsed. The building’s roof ripped off, and Bauver had a clear, and unsettling, view of the sky from her living room.
Bauver, now a resident of West Chester, where she and her partner moved after breaking the lease on her Wynnewood apartment, had been living in the Wyndon Apartments for two years when the July microburst storm tore through Lower Merion, destroying her home and more than $5,000 of her and her partner’s belongings. She was one of dozens of suburbanresidents who emerged from the storm with damaged property and a devastated home.
As the Philadelphia region sees hotter and more humid summers, flash flooding, extreme precipitation, and life-threateningstorms have become a more common feature of daily life.Weather eventsmarked by downed trees, dangerous flash floods, waterlogged roadways, and eroded bridges are, more and more,forcing suburban residents and cash-strapped local governments to pour millions into repair and resilience projects, all while large swathsof the region’s infrastructure are built to withstand weather patterns of a bygone era, one in which storms like July’s microbursthappened once in a decade, rather than multiple times a summer.
As the region’s weather patterns intensify, officials and climate experts say the municipal mosaic of Philadelphia’s suburbs faces unique challenges when it comes to planning for a future marked by climate change.
Utility workers restore power in Merion Station on July 13 after a microburst storm ripped through parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The Philadelphia region’s changing weather
The average July temperature in Philadelphia has risen 4.4 degrees since 1940. In the 1900s, Philadelphia averaged four days per year with temperatures above 95 degrees, according to a 2024 EPA report. This summer, Philly has seen six days with high temperatures above 95 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. By the end of the 21st century, that number could climb to more than 50 days per year.
Hotter weather means more precipitation, and more frequent and intense rain events. For every 1.8 degrees the air temperature increases, the amount of water the atmosphere can hold increases by 7%.
“The infrastructure we have now is not always built to a standard to accommodate the extreme weather we’re seeing now,” said Chris Linn, manager of the Office of Resilience and Environment at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.
AsRay Courtney, a Lower Merion commissioner and chair of the township’s sustainability committee, said, “We get a 100-year storm every year.”
Cars in a flooded parking lot at the Ferry Avenue PATCO station in Camden on July 6. Philadelphia and its suburbs have been hit with numerous flash floods this summer, as an increasingly hot and humid atmosphere gives way to more extreme weather.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Flooding as ‘the biggest and most common hazard’
The impacts of intense storms are multitudinous and cascading, and the topography of Philadelphia’s suburbs can make it particularly difficult to find effectivesolutions.
Linn said flooding is “the biggest and most common hazard that communities face,” and it presents the most “consistent and pervasive” issues for municipal leaders.
Intense precipitation and flash floods, which have been a constant this summer, can disrupt transit, turn roads into rivers, and endanger residents’ lives. High winds and saturated soil frequently bring down trees, damaging homes and cars and knocking out overhead power lines. Disruptions to power can be particularly dangerous when residents are left without fans or air-conditioning during hot summers.
Flooding has been reported more than 200 times in the Philadelphia region over the last two summers.Stephen Stirling
“I see roads flooding consistently, trees coming down, power going out, and then our local government spending resources every time one of these storms happens. It’s overtime costs and tree costs, and then also all the private citizens having to spend costs cleaning up trees and other debris,” Courtney said.
“These unlikely, freak events are really the ones that break us,” said Matthijs Bouw, architect and professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
A key tool for managing extreme weatheris stormwater systems, or the collection of drains, basins, ditches, and pipes that collect rainwater and snowmelt and move it from developed areas into local waterways. Stormwater systems are critical in moving water off impervious, or impenetrable, surfaces, like the parking lots, paved roads, and shopping centers often found in the suburbs.
The more developed a suburb is, the more runoff a storm will produce, increasing flooding risks, said Franco Montalto, professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering at Drexel University.
Yet many municipalities are contending with aging stormwater systems that require costly repairs. Lower Merion’s 2018 Comprehensive Stormwater Management Plan listed aging pipes, undersized infrastructure, operational costs, and increasing flooding as challenges for the township. Many of Philadelphia’s suburban communities are composed of buildings that predate a 1978 state law requiring counties and local governments to plan with stormwater management in mind.
Some communities are more vulnerable to climate impacts than others, with density, land cover, wealth, and the state of repair of existing infrastructure as factors. A 2021 climate change vulnerability analysis by Montgomery County found denser, water-proximate communities like Norristown and Pottstown to have some of the highest risk of increased stresses due to climate change. Greener, more rural parts of the county like New Hanover and Marlborough Townships presented lower risks.
The aftermath and clean up of flooding in Camden on July 6. Stormwater systems are a critical tool for local governments to manage flooding. Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
How can communities mitigate impacts?
Experts described a range of interventions for managing climate impacts, from constructing rain gardens to rewriting zoning ordinances.
Maintaining a healthy tree canopy and building rain gardens can help rainwater permeate into the ground. Larger infrastructure efforts like stream restoration projects and floodplain maintenance can help stabilize the built environment.
However, Linn said, these interventions “don’t necessarily address more severe or catastrophic flooding in terms of mitigating those impacts.”
Long-term climate resilience, experts said, relies on making land-use and zoning decisions that preserve floodplains and natural drainage patterns and ensure stormwater systems can manage our new, rainy reality.
Montalto is interested communities that have become “safe to flood,” or that have created parks, parking lots, road medians, and other open spaces that trap water during floods, then properly drain it, keeping it away from buildings and roads. A basketball court built below a park, for example, can fill with water during a storm and slowly drain, mitigating runoff (one was recently installed in New York City). Copenhagen’s Cloudburst Management Plan, adopted in 2012 after a major storm, is a blueprint of sorts in Montalto’s mind.
However, bringing “safe to flood” infrastructure to Philly’s suburbs may be a far-out goal.
In the vast suburbs, the collection of boroughs, townships, and county lines makes unified action difficult, and forces officials to think along municipal, not watershed, lines. On the Main Line alone, rainfall and snowmelt drain into a collection of dozens of creeks and streams that do not start or stop where a municipal boundary is drawn, making it difficult to take coordinated and effective action when it comes to flood mitigation along certain waterways.
Finding the funding to repair and replace stormwater infrastructure, too, can be taxing, as local governments stare down costly projects, even with the availability of state and federal grants.Political will factors in, with municipalities differing in their desire and ability to use taxpayer dollars to tackle climate issues.
Philly’s suburbs, like the city, are also often old, dense, and built out, making it hard to retrofit them to be more climate-sensitive.
“So many of our communities are built out and have been built out for a long time, so the vulnerabilities and the challenges are built in to the community,” Linn said.
Utility workers restore power along Wynnewood Avenue in Merion Station on July 13.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Solving ‘complex issues’ in Montgomery County
Despite the challenges, progress is being made, said Montgomery County Commissioner Jamila Winder.
Montgomery County in 2025 led a flood mitigation planning study for the 362-square-mile Perkiomen Creek Watershed, which stretches across Montgomery, Bucks, Berks, and Lehigh Counties. The study identified flood-prone areas, evaluated mitigation tactics, and worked to build a framework for long-term resilience. The county is currently in the process of carrying out a floodplain restoration project along the Wissahickon Creek in Whitemarsh Township. Both projects came to fruition after Hurricane Ida tore through the region, bringing record floods and killing multiple people.
The county has repaired 30 structurally deficient bridges since 2017 and has repaved dozens of miles of road. County workers also removed 200 dangerous trees earlier this year, resulting in a significant drop in emergency phone calls about tree damage, Winder said.
Lower Merion in 2021 hired its first full-time sustainability manager and in 2023 completed its first sustainability plan. Radnor Township has adopted a comprehensive climate plan, and Haverford Township has set out to achieve 100% zero-carbon renewable power by 2035.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in January announced more than $17 million in funding for environmental projects across the state, including stream restoration and stormwater management.
Winder said, “We’re seeing that when we work across federal, state, county, and local leadership, that we can come together to solve some of these complex issues.”
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.
High Street Hospitality founder and James Beard Award winner Ellen Yin is just about ready to hit Rittenhouse with Bar Cicci, an all-day drop-in for espresso and pastries by morning, sandwiches by day, and spritzes, cicchetti, and small plates by night. Join Beatrice Forman on Sansom Street for your first look.
Shore season isn’t done yet, and neither are farmers markets, which have seen an uptick in business locally in the midst of a cyclospora outbreak. Hira Qureshi maps out where you can buy local produce, baked goods, and more at markets down the Shore.
Besides Bar Cicci, a half-dozen new restaurants are on tap this month, including Recipe Philly in Center City, Cecilia in Bridgeport, and Mixteca in East Kensington, where the red, white, and green of la bandera figures into the signature cocktail.
Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, one of the Main Line’s busiest commercial strips, is now home to two new dessert shops. Denali Sagner explains that one specializes in tea, cakes, and buns, while the other celebrates the mango.
Canned-cocktail brand Top Dog is setting up listening rooms in Kennett Square and Fishtown, embracing the Japanese jazz kissa model — a music cafe or bar that’s focused on listening to vinyl records. Brooke Schultz chatted up Top Dog’s Ken Smukler, who aims to deliver an “analog feel in a digital world.” The Fishtown location is tiny. It used to be an ATM.
The handmade tarts from Market Day Canelé layer summer tomatoes over a corn custard with cremini and button mushrooms, herb-roasted cotto ham, eggs, and Gruyère in a flaky crust. Kiki Aranita says you have to act fast to snap one up.
Scoops
Two chefshave made big professional strides from their roots in Roxborough, and now they’re coming home to Manayunk to take over the Winnie’s space with a “punk French” eatery.
Aldar Bistro in Bala Cynwyd is giving way after 34 years to a white-tablecloth Southern Italian restaurant called Bruzi.
Does a spateof restaurant-closing announcements — such as Hiroki, Federal Donuts & Chicken,and the Lodge by Two Robbers — portend industry doom? No, and I’ll explain why not.
Restaurant report
Gabriella’s Vietnam in South Philadelphia is counting down to closing in mid-December as the new owner of her building is planning a restaurant of their own. Chef-owner Thanh Nguyen told Kiki Aranita that she is looking for a new spot.
Side Eye, the Queen Village bistro, gets a bit of side eye from critic Craig LaBan, who likes the vibe and pricing but thinks the execution could be sharper.
New drive-thru coffee option: The syndicated 7 Brew has opened at 4000 Woodhaven Rd. in Northeast Philadelphia’s Knights Road Shopping Center.
More bagels are coming round: Central Florida-based Jeff’s Bagel Run — schmeared with private-equity investment — has cinched a franchisee for 10 stores from the Harrisburg area east through Reading and the Lehigh Valley to suburban Philadelphia. No leases have been signed, the company announced in a press release.
Briefly noted
Cantina la Martina’s fourth annual Cemita Festival returns from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at the Garden Center across from Mural City Cellars (1825 Frankford Ave). Six restaurants will each serve interpretations of Puebla’s iconic cemita sandwich for $16: Cantina la Martina, Gilda, Bolo, Vientiane Bistro, Cinteotl Tamalli, and Los Cuatro Soles Restaurant. Also: beverages from Mural City Cellars, DJ Cali Rumba, dance performances by Danza Tonantzin Cultura, face painting, and artisan vendors. It’s pay-as-you-go. Some cemita vendors are cash only.
Post Haste in East Kensington will become Philadelphia’s only participant in the inaugural Global Pay What You Can Day on Aug. 26, joining restaurants from Mexico City to Mumbai in a one-day effort to make dining more accessible. Guests can order whatever they’d like and pay what they can (excluding alcohol), building on chef Ari Miller’s weekly pay-what-you-can program launched earlier this year. (Miller is married to Inquirer staff writer Kiki Aranita.)
The Fishtown Pickle Project is taking its annual pickle-themed dinner outside of Fishtown for the first time. The Aug. 27 edition will have founders Niki Toscani and Mike Sicinski in Rittenhouse to collaborate with Uchi on a nine-course, pickle-centric tasting menu (e.g. oysters with giardiniera, yellowtail with pickled peach, salmon with pickled enoki, and a dessert featuring pickle jam). Seatings: 6 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $125 per person, plus tax and gratuity.
Chef Chaz Brown, in partnership with Forman Arts Initiative, will present the third annual Oxtail Collective from 1-5 p.m. Aug. 30 at the Substation in Kensington. Titled “The Hercules Posey Celebration” — after George Washington’s enslaved chef — the event will bring together Black chefs, historians, artists, and entrepreneurs to explore the intersections of food, culture, business, and history while serving as an early public introduction to Forman’s future 100,000-square-foot arts campus. Participating chefs include Chad Williams of Friday Saturday Sunday, Omar Tate and Cybille St. Aude-Tate of Honeysuckle, and Shola Olunloyo of Studiokitchen. PBS NewsHour’s Geoff Bennett will moderate panels, and the program also includes tastings from 15 chefs, cooking demos, and a marketplace featuring Black-owned businesses. Tickets ($92.55, including fees) are on sale.
Delicious City Philly Podcast’ssecond annual Hoagie Throwdown has a date: Sept. 27, from noon-4 p.m., at Other Half Brewing in Fishtown, drawing 20 chefs, restaurants, delis, and sandwich makers to compete. There will be unlimited hoagie samples, beer/soft drinks, and pro wrestlers grappling. (Last year’s outing was a scene: The Inquirer’s Craig LaBan, in a Zorro mask and big hat, went through hoagie-making boot camp.) The podcast has made 500 tickets available and early pricing starts at $55.
❓Pop quiz
Which Pennsylvania farm crop is in the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Commerce?
What is going on at 117 Chestnut St.? The restaurant 117 is closed already and it just opened. — Chris D.
Old City restaurant 117, which opened only last November, posted a note on Instragram last week that it had closed “due to circumstances beyond our control.” According to Philadelphia court records, the restaurant was evicted over back rent.
The space’s previous occupant, the Avery, also had a very short run last year. Previous occupants had better luck: 2nd Story Brewing Co. closed in 2024 after a decade and was the last to use the brewing equipment installed by Triumph Brewing Co. for its own run from 2007 to 2014.
Adding intrigue now is the liquor license application that was filed at 117 Chestnut St. last week in the name “Finish Your Champagne LLC.” Finish Your Champagne is the name of the long-in-the-works Columbus Boulevard cocktail bar project from Kevin Dolce, owner of Center City’s Taste Cheesesteak Bar and Savù. Dolce declined comment.
📮 Have a question about food in Philly? Email your questions to me at mklein@inquirer.com for a chance to be featured in my newsletter.
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Today’s newsletter is all about things I thought I was done writing about: COVID-19, Kamala Harris, and the World Cup. Regarding the latter, FIFA strongman Gianni Infantino walked off the pitch after last month’s final like the hero in Steve Miller’s “Take the Money and Run”: He got the money — an ungodly $15 billion in revenue — thinking he got away. But instead, just like Icarus, Infantino flew too close to the sun. A plan to make even more cash off the world’s greatest sporting event — by selling a share to private investors led by the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law — outraged so many folks that the FIFA chief could lose his job. What a shame.
The right can’t shut up about COVID-19 because it needs your outrage against experts
Workers move bodies to a refrigerated truck from the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in the Brooklyn borough of New York in April 2020.AP
Honestly, I thought — and hoped, frankly — that I’d written about the COVID-19 pandemic for the last time by the end of 2021. The issues it raised — about everything from public health preparedness to conspiracy theories — had seemed important enough, but I was more than ready to move on from empty baseball stadiums and masks in the supermarket.
I thought most folks felt the same way — that we were all eager to put the coronavirus in the rearview mirror. Clearly, I was wrong. The people we call MAGA still can’t stop yelling about it.
Last week brought the acid flashback of the government’s communicable disease czar when the pandemic erupted in 2020,Anthony Fauci,getting dragged before a U.S. Senate committee in a Joe McCarthy fashion, forced to take the Fifth Amendment to avoid any perjury traps that would satisfy the senators’ mouth-breathing constituents’ raw lust to imprison the 85-year-old public health icon.
The realization that they weren’t going to send Fauci — who was pardoned for his past actions in January 2025 by outgoing President Joe Biden to protect the good doctor from GOP wrath — up the river led these Republican statesmen to do the only thing left: scream at him.
“Who the f— do you think you were for doing that?” Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno yelled at Fauci, even as it’s hard to understand what “that” was, except for working tirelessly to give Americans the best information about a rapidly evolving, deadly pandemic. “It is a total disgrace what you did to this country.”
The baseless attacks on Fauci by right-wingers — who’ve convinced themselves that the real crisis of 2020-2021 wasn’t the invisible virus that caused the early death of more than 1.2 million Americans, but an authoritarian government (led at the time by Donald Trump, but no matter) making them wear those masks and avoid those baseball games — were both infuriating and unconscionable. Still, maybe because of my aversion to reliving the pandemic, I was going to let the subject slide.
But then the current government’s top health official, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., went on CNN to double down on the Trump regime’s Big Lies about what really happened during the COVID years. And like Moreno, RFK Jr. turned the volume up to 11.
“Anthony Fauci was mismanaging the COVIDpandemic and was doing it under the Biden administration. President Trump wanted to end the lockdowns,” Kennedy loudly told CNN’s Dana Bash, inventing a farcical, backward timeline. An agitated RFK Jr. insisted the government’s priority during COVID-19 should not have been saving lives, but “protecting constitutional rights,” yet to make this fiction sound less ridiculous, the HHS chief also had to lie about the extent of thecrisis.
“There were ICUs that were empty all over the country, including in New York, at the height [of the pandemic],” Kennedy insisted.
This can no longer be ignored. There are two very important points that need to be made here.
First, when a high-ranking government official tells a lie on national television, this must be debunked immediately. The truth here is that the hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units, especially in New York City but other locales as well, were overwhelmed in the spring of 2020. So were many morgues and funeral homes, which struggled to keep up with the dead.
“I worked for New York’s largest medical center at the start of the pandemic,” Lucky Tran, a Columbia University scientist, posted on Bluesky. “There were morgue trucks on the streets. They set up emergency medical tents in Central Park. Healthcare worker colleagues died. It is horrific that RFK Jr is on national TV lying that ICUs were empty.”
Of course, this is just one of a number of lies about the pandemic — that the vaccines released to the public in early 2021 are dangerous (they’re not), that the virus came from a Chinese lab (it almost certainly didn’t) and not animal-to-human contact, and that Fauci led some kind of Watergate-level cover-up (his personal diaries, obtained by the senators, revealed exactly the opposite) — that are matters of faith among the political right.
Which brings us to the second big thing: Why? Why are all of these petty grievances about inconveniences we experienced six years ago still so gosh-darned important to these yelling people in 2026? Why do they want to send an octogenarian Fauci — a grandson of Italian immigrants whose life was the kind of American dream 20th-century Republicans would have celebrated — to prison?
The real virus here is anti-intellectualism — a strain that has always existed in American life, as the historian Richard Hofstadter famously wrote in 1964 — that has metastasized from a small, well-contained syndrome to overtaking the entire Republican Party. So-called rural resentment leads angry voters to think people like college professors or doctors in white coats are looking down on them.
It’s an antisocial worldview that was encouraged from on high by the likes of Big Oil executives who love it when the masses scoff at climate scientists. But the rejection of expertise reached a whole new level in 2020 when doctors like Fauci started telling Americans to wear masks or avoid social gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Sure, there were tough calls around issues like how long to close schools, but in real time, health experts were erring on the side of caution — the right thing to do — while shell-shocked regular folks stewed about an assault on their liberty.
As the revived Fauci controversy continued online this week, Mike Adams, whose website has been accused of spreading medical disinformation, posted Monday on X that getting a COVID-19 vaccine “reveals a twisted and artificial obedience to the falsified appearance of authority. People like that should never be trusted, because they are not in control of their own minds.”
They believe experts like Fauci don’t want to help you, but control you — welcome to the far right’s Bizarro World.
But still, why? At the end of the day, these extremists might care somewhat about thwarting climate science or not wearing masks, but the real reason they despise educated experts is because facts shatter the ancient, lie-based hierarchies such as white supremacy, the patriarchy, or homophobia that give meaning to their broken world.
I think some of the reason they still care so much about Fauci is that the pandemic spring of 2020 also brought the police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter marches that shocked many of the communities where they occurred. In their minds, all of it — masks, diversity training, vaccines, calls to “defund the police” — merged into one giant threat.
Which brings us to: Why now? There’s no question that the lingering resentments of 2020-2021 over both the coronavirus and the Floyd protests were the rage fuel that revived Trump, who looked dead in the water after his failed coup of Jan. 6, 2021. Now, it’s less than 100 days until a new election that could cripple Trump and his MAGA movement. And they are desperately waving the bloody shirt of COVID-19.
We must never forget the truth about 2020, Fauci, or the necessity of public health in a true democracy. Our anti-science government is seeing rising cases of measles and of the bacteria that causes explosive diarrhea (which has now been linked to two deaths), and God only knows what elseis in the pipeline.
Experts like Fauci aren’t here to tell you how to live your life — just how to not die.
Yo, do this!
I remain fascinated with the hidden history of American reactionary movements, which is coming out of the shadows during the Trump era. I’ve been listening to the audiobook of The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915 by College of Charleston historian Joseph Kelly, which looks at how the defense of slavery in the antebellum South, Jim Crow, and the early 20th century revival of the Ku Klux Klan all bore the defining characteristics of an American strain of fascism, often for the self-preservation of monied interests. In the same mode, I highly recommend a recent New York Times guest essay, “It Wasn’t a Civil War. It Was the Slaveholders’ Rebellion,” by history writer Anthony Conwright, who argues persuasively that the name most of us have always used to describe the 1861-1865 conflict is actually a whitewash pushed by the South. The piece is a real eye-opener.
Did I mention that 2026’s summer of soccer isn’t over? The Philadelphia Union have emerged from the two-month World Cup break with a completely different look from the group that tanked in the first half of the MLS season, with the return of Kai Wagner (from England) and Quinn Sullivan (from injury) and rising young stars Neil Pierre and Cavan Sullivan, Quinn’s brother. They’ll also get a fresh start for a trophy opportunity with the arrival of the Leagues Cup tournament against the best teams of Mexico’s Liga MX. Check out their first match Thursday night at 8 p.m. against traditional powerhouse Cruz Azul, live at Subaru Park in Chester and on Apple TV.
Ask me anything
Question: Do you believe the Dems have a chance to take the Senate in November? — Elise (@bnat4.bsky.social) via Bluesky
Answer: Elise, I’d almost bank on it happening, and here’s why. Since the early months of the Trump 47 presidency, Democrats — who need to gain four seats for a majority — have consistently run double digits ahead of past performance in special elections. That should put seven states in play, with the strongest possible candidates in places like North Carolina (ex-Gov. Roy Cooper), Alaska (ex-Rep. Mary Peltola), and Iowa (Josh Turek). Maine voters will forget the Graham Platner fiasco long before they forget Sen. Susan Collins’ vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Ironically, the battle to hold a Democratic seat in Michigan looks toughest, but likely primary winner Abdul El-Sayed is an excellent campaigner. As Trump’s popularity plummets, there’s even a chance for shockers in places like Florida or with independent candidates in Nebraska or Idaho. For me, the bigger question is whether 51-plus Dems will dump Chuck Schumer as their leader after November. Stay tuned.
What you’re saying about …
Many of you had great ideas for a fall Democratic message that’s about more than just “affordability” — the preferred mantra of the party’s consultant class. Many sought to widen the conversation to issues around corruption and inequality. Here are some pithy ones. Roberta Soules wants to “take power away from the large corporations and oligarchs.” Meg Berlin suggested “More Butter. Fewer Guns.” Dane Madsen prefers “Stop the Trump Crime Family,” while Frank Friedman went with an even simpler, “We will be honest with you.” Stephen R. Rourke wrote simply, “Peace, prosperity, and justice for all.”
📮 This week’s question:CNN is reporting that the Pentagon recently took the highly unconventional step of asking rank-and-file troops for creative new ideas on how “to punish Iran.” But what should be done about this mess? Can the United States simply walk away at this point? Or do big problems like the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz or Iran’s nuclear ambitions require a response, and what is that, exactly? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “Iran war ideas” in the subject line.
Backstory: Is Kamala Harris ‘the new Nixon’?
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a concession speech for the 2024 presidential election, Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington. Jacquelyn Martin
Although it’s true that, as a 5-year-old kindergartner in 1964, I nearly got into a fight with a kid who said he supported Barry Goldwater, the first presidential election I really followed came four years later in 1968. I was probably waiting for the baseball scores when I saw news reports that the GOP front-runner was a “New Nixon,” which made this 9-year-old wonder what was wrong with the old one. Indeed, a Californian who’d lost a presidential election (and a gubernatorial race just two years later) stunned America with the political comeback that made him the 37th president. We’d spend the next six years of Kent State and Watergate learning the kinder, gentler Richard Nixon of 1968 was all a lie.
It would be a Nixon-level comeback if Kamala Harris were to win the Democratic nomination in 2028, let alone the presidency. Like Tricky Dick, Harris is a child of the Golden State and former vice president to the oldest-ever POTUS at that time (Dwight Eisenhower was 70 when he left office, which was unprecedented before Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden, and now Donald Trump), and a failed nominee, although shewas smart enough not to run for governor when she returned home. People forget the brief lightning bolt of excitement when she replaced Biden on top of the 2024 ticket, and so the smart money has been that her moment has passed, as the Democratic base looks for new blood.
But it feels like the earth has shifted a bit, and the reason can be summed up in two words: South Carolina. Last week, the Democratic National Committee unveiled its list of the first six presidential primary states, and the South Carolina primary tops the list. The same South Carolina where, in 2020, the state’s main Democratic voting bloc — older, center-left, Black members of the middle- or working classes — turned the race around for Biden, the man who then tapped Harris as his veep. The same South Carolina whose Democratic power broker, Rep. James Clyburn, is close to Harris. A state that seems tailor-made for a Harris comeback.
But the Palmetto State isn’t the only reason to start taking a Harris return seriously. In politics, your weakness is often also your strength, or vice versa. Harris has long been a political chameleon — from tough 2010s prosecutor to a sharp left turn during Trump’s first term that she backpedaled away from in 2024. Today, Harris is feeling the zeitgeist. She is drifting left again, but perhaps more importantly, she understands the desire by core Democrats to support fighters, not milquetoast cowards.
“They are ruthless,” Harris told the annual gathering of the National Urban League in Nashville on Friday, referring to Republicans. “We need to be ruthless, too” — explaining that Democrats should not be “cruel,” but “uncompromising.” She added: “For example, and I know this is going to be controversial coming from me, in particular, we need to revisit the Electoral College. We need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices, like we have 13 district courts. We need to revisit, if they so want, statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.” Harris has also been holding extensive meetings with some of the pro-Palestinian activists who often clashed with her over Israel policy in 2024.
She’s running? It sure sounds like it.
To be clear, while I thought in the fall of 2024 that Harris had thepotential to become a very good president, and I still do, I’m also very much in the “new blood” camp when I think about 2028. I’d love to see what someone from the progressive Bernie Sanders-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the movement could do in wiping away the stain of Trumpism. But establishment Democrats, intentionally or not, have thrown Harris a lifeline with their South Carolina gambit. The coming months will reveal whether this former vice president can be “the new Nixon” of the left.
What I wrote on this date in 2013
I was reminded that the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks is almost upon us. Expect a lot of what you might call negative nostalgia about that wretched day in 2001, but also the bad times that followed. Do you remember the terror alerts? Many of us thought those would vanish when George W. Bush left the White House, so it was a little jarring when Barack Obama continued the practice, including this major one 13 years ago. I wrote that “the problem with the terror warning of 2013 is not the warning itself but the decade of government baloney that preceded it. Washington needs to acknowledge the reality: If it wants to do a better job of keeping the public safe, it will need to start doing a much, much better job of telling the public the truth.”
The Trump regime’s cruel campaign against our immigrant neighbors is the biggest story of our time. Last week, I traveled to a tiny borough in Central Pennsylvania, Mount Holly Springs, where a budding partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has seized 32 immigrants in just four months, and angrily divided a rural community. Pennsylvania’s small towns are becoming the front line of mass deportation. Over the weekend, the immigrant crackdown was central to my essay about the rising death toll that’s attributable to Trump’s misrule, which includes murdered deportees in Guatemala, a woman left by ICE agents to die at a Pittsburgh bus terminal, the latest civilian bombing victims in Iran, and many, many more. It’s a humanitarian crisis that demands our immediate attention.
No two people define the world-class journalism that we regularly produce here at The Inquirer more than my longtime friends Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, who could have rested on their laurels after winning the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2010. Instead, both are working harder than ever. Ruderman has applied her talent for digging to Philadelphia’s leading industry, healthcare, with remarkable results. Check out her latest exposé about a Main Line psychiatrist who lost her license after a wildly inappropriate affair with a troubled younger client. Laker remains a linchpin of The Inquirer’s investigative unit, and — joined by her colleagues Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin, and Ellie Rushing — she has been digging into the dark tale of a Philadelphia pornographer and his family’s mysterious ties to two missing women. Investigative reporting is essential to democracy and forging better communities, but it’s costly, time-consuming, and won’t happen without your support. Subscribe to The Inquirer today.
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After more than three decades, the Wakim family is handing off Bala Cynwyd’s Aldar Bistro to veterans of Center City’s Gran Caffè L’Aquila, who plan to transform the longtime Lebanese restaurant into a soft-lit, white-tablecloth Southern Italian destination called Bruzi.
Two Philly-based couples from Cosenza in Calabria — Luciano and Tania Spensierato and Marco Mondello and Anna Bellizzi — are buying the restaurant at 285 Montgomery Ave. from Joseph Wakim and family.
The sale, contingent on approval of the liquor license transfer, will end the Wakims’ 34-year run at Aldar, which will be open during the transfer process. The restaurant succeeded the family’s Italian restaurant, Allegresse, which opened in 1980.
The Wakims — brothers Joseph, Michel, and George, and sister Fadia — also own Murray’s Deli next door, as well as Evviva, a restaurant, catering venue, and private-events space in Narberth.
“We all grow older, and it’s time to step aside,” Joseph Wakim said. “Over the past five years, we probably had 10 suitors, and I said, ‘No, thank you.’”
He said he ultimately chose the two couples because they were “the right families for us to pass the torch to.”
Tania Spensierato said Aldar “checked all the boxes we were looking for. We wanted to be on the Main Line. We wanted tall ceilings, an existing liquor license, and a space that was roomy but not enormous. We weren’t looking for a 200- or 300-seat restaurant. We wanted a spacious kitchen so the chef would have room to do what he does best.”
“We also wanted to be part of a community,” she said. “Bala Cynwyd and Lower Merion really fit that vision. The location on Montgomery Avenue was exactly what we were looking for.”
Aldar will remain open until the liquor-license transfer is approved, a process that Wakim believes could be completed in September. The new owners then anticipate about two months of renovations before opening Bruzi in late October or November.
Luciano Spensierato has worked behind the bar at Gran Caffè L’Aquila since 2015, while Marco Mondello joined the Center City restaurant a year later as a bartender. Tania Spensierato works in retail, though her background is in restaurants. Bellizzi is a scientist at Temple University.
The name Bruzi refers to the ancient people of Calabria, where all the partners trace their roots. Tania Spensierato, a first-generation Italian American, said the restaurant is intended to reflect that heritage.
The menu will focus on house-made pastas and traditional Calabrian cooking. Planned dishes include sliced black boar prosciutto, Calabrian cheeses, fusilli with slow-cooked meat sauce, baked lamb with tomatoes, olives, and roasted peppers, and grilled tuna with arugula.
The beverage program also will be a centerpiece. Marco Mondello, an Italian-trained sommelier, plans to open with about 100 Italian wines and expand the list over time. Spensierato, who has worked as a bartender for 35 years, said cocktails will also play a prominent role.
Glynis Tart of Verden Interior Design will give the dining room a modern Mediterranean makeover with blue-and-gold accents inspired by the Calabrian flag, along with olive trees and other greenery, Tania Spensierato said. A small retail section will sell imported Italian products.
The partners have hired an Italian-born chef currently working in Florida but declined to identify him until a later date. “Our first priority is simply to get started,” Tania Spensierato said. “One goal at a time.”
