Kurt Vile’s love of Philly — and Philadelphia’s affection for Kurt Vile — has never been in question.
For the cover of Constant Hitmaker, the 2008 album that announced his arrival, Vile posed in front of a blown out wall “that looks like a Rauschenberg painting” at the corner of Frankford and Norris, he recalls. “That stuff’s beautiful, you know?”
Since 2012, a Steve “ESPO” Powers mural that doubles as the cover for Vile’s 2013 album Wakin On A Pretty Daze has adorned a wall at Front and Master Streets in Northern Liberties, visible to travelers headed north on the Market-Frankford El.
With his signature mane and quizzical expression, Vile, who grew up in Lansdowne in Delaware County, has been the face of Philly’s reign as the capital city of 21st century indie rock.
Kurt Vile stands in front of a mural by Steve “ESPO” Powers on March 27, 2013. Michael S. Wirtz / Staff Photographer
The city is embedded in Vile’s music at every turn, from the “I park for free!” boast on the 2018 song “Loading Zones” to the cover of 2022’s Watch My Moves, which pictures the Dad rock king wearing a crocodile mask in Wissahickon Valley Park, flanked by daughters Awilda and Delphine.
But Vile has never repped his hometown so hard as on his new album, Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me, released in May. It includes shout-outs to Lincoln Drive, the Schuylkill, and Sun Ra, and an infectious single “Chance to Bleed” that features Philadelphia gangsta rap pioneer Schoolly D in a video shot at Kung Fu Necktie.
Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me even includes a playful taunt at two of Vile’s classic rock favorites who dared to record songs with the word Philadelphia in the title.
“A couple of my heroes wrote a song,” Vile talk-sings in “You Don’t Know Cuz It’s My Life.” “But that ain’t where they’re from, so hey you don’t know / But I still love you, Neil and the Boss.”
Working in the wee hours in his basement OKV studio — which stands for “Overnight Kurt Vile” — in his fieldstone house in Mount Airy, Vile recalls, “I was singing along to this keyboard track I had laid down, and that thought came to me.”
Kurt Vile in his basement studio at his home in Mount Airy June 13, 2022, with his daughter Delphine.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Vile, who had (legally) parked his Prius in a nearby loading zone, was talking at the Silk City Diner on the Sunday night of Memorial Day weekend where he would realize a long-held ambition: sitting in with centenarian saxophonist Marshall Allen and members of the Sun Ra Arkestra.
Vile — who was wearing a Tammy Wynette T-shirt and MF Doom trucker’s hat, with his 1965 Fender Jazzmaster Sunburst in the booth beside him (without a case) — explainedhis unique position in Philadelphia music history while dining on an Impossible Burger and Korean fried cauliflower.
“Springsteen wrote the song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and Neil wrote ‘Philadelphia,’ and they’re both on the soundtrack to Philadelphia, right?” he says, referring to Jonathan Demme’s 1993 AIDS drama.
“I get where they’re coming from, but it’s still an assignment. They’re singing about a city they don’t know that well. I’m proud of the city that I’m from, and I’m also lucky that I’m from here.
“It’s like my friend Mary Lattimore, who plays the harp.” (And has given lessons to Vile’s daughters, who also both play guitar.) “She’s not from Philly, but she lived here forever, so it feels like home to her, even though she’s in LA now.”
The album cover of Kurt Vile’s ‘Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me,’ which features a photo by Memphis photographer William Eggleston.Verve
Adam Granduciel of the War on Drugs, with whom Vile frequently teamed up when both were aspiring artists in the 2000s, also grew up elsewhere and now lives in Los Angeles.
“They’re two of my oldest friends that were in the Philly scene forever, but they don’t have the extended history that I do.”
Kurt Vile with his father, Charlie, and his daughters Delphine (left) and Awilda, who posed with him on the cover of his latest album, at his home in Mount Airy on June 13, 2022.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The Philly fixture
Vile — who is the oldest boy among the 10 children of his SEPTA train operator father Charlie and stay-at-home mother Donna — is Philly-area born and bred.
“I’m the OG,” he says. “That’s what I’m proud about. It’s like Questlove, or something,” though for all the Philly repping the Roots drummer does, he doesn’t live here either.
Vile, by contrast, is a Philadelphia fixture. When artists like country rebel Margo Price, Australian rocker Courtney Barnett, and North African desert blues band Tinariwen have come to town, there was one way to know for sure they were in Philadelphia: Kurt Vile was standing next to them onstage.
Vile plays the Dell Music Center with his band the Violators on July 25 as part of Connor Barwin’s Make The World Better Concert Weekend. He played Barwin’s first MTWB Foundation benefit in 2014, which raised money to build playgrounds and rec centers throughout the city.
“I don’t follow football and I didn’t know who he was,” Vile says, recalling meeting Barwin at a show. “He walked in and he looked amazing. He was so tall, like a [expletive] Eagle. He was just a genuine fan. I love reconnecting with Connor and watching him do his thing.”
Vile’s July 25 show is the second of two MTWB nights at the Dell. The first-night headliners are 1990s alt-rock heroes Pavement.
“Pavement was my gateway drug to indie rock,” Vile says. “Stephen Malkmus was my hero. I got my first job as a busboy at the Blue Comet on Baltimore Pike and I would spend all my money on Pavement CDs.”
Now, Vile is friends with Malkmus, and was stoked when he found out they were both playing the MTWB weekend — until he realized that he has a gig in Boston the night Pavement is playing. “I’m missing Pavement by a day,” he says. “Which I’m not happy about.”
Vile, 46, has spent his entire life living in the Philly area, save for 2002-03 when he followed his wife Suzanne Lang to Boston while she got a master’s degree at Emerson College.
Philly alt-rock star Kurt Vile outside the Silk City Diner on Sunday, May 24, 2026 in Philadelphia.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
He worked as a forklift operator for an air freight company. “The most ball bustin’ blue-collar job there is,” he says. Before he mastered the machinery, “I got made fun of a lot my first year. But then I got really good at it.”
Returning to Philly and moving to Northern Liberties, he went to work for Philadelphia Brewing Company, where he was hired by future pizza sensei Joe Beddia who was roommates with Granduciel. “They were all blown away by my forklift skills,” recalls Vile. “And that’s how I met Adam.”
At PBC, Vile met Jack Rose, the late Philadelphia guitarist who, like Vile, was a fan of influential American Primitive guitarist John Fahey.
Asked to name his top five Philadelphia artists, Vile starts with Rose. He then adds Purling Hiss guitarist Mike Polizze, and psychedelic folk singer Meg Baird, Petty Bunco label head and singer Richie Charles, along with Schoolly D.
“Is that five?” It is, but Vile has a couple more: Marshall Allen-slash-Sun Ra, and rockin’ country band Florry. “They’re so fun and excitable and young,” Vile says.
Kurt Vile in the music room in his home in Mt. Airy June 13, 2022 (this is not the basement studio)TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
“I love Mount Airy and Germantown,” he says. “There’s still so much old-school Philly in Germantown. And Mount Airy really saved my life. I love that there’s forest, and I have room to think.
Kurt Vile at his home in Mount Airy June 13, 2022, with his daughters Awilda (left) and Delphine, who posed with him on the cover of his latest album.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
“But I can still go to the city any time, and it’s so quick,” driving his Prius down Lincoln and Kelly Drives. “You go in through the Art Museum, and it’s a classy way to go in, you know?”
Over 10 albums, Vile has continued to develop a raw, unhurried signature sound. He often seems to be talking to himself in a bemused drawl over patient jams that turn out to be transfixing.
What country star Keith Urban once said of Vile’s 2015 hit “Pretty Pimpin’” in naming it as one of five songs he wished he’d written applies to Vile’s songwriting in general: “I don’t know how he wrote it, but it sounds like pure stream of consciousness.”
Philly alt-rock star Kurt Vile walking outside the Silk City Diner on Sunday, May 24, 2026 in Philadelphia.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
‘Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me’
On Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me — whose cover features a photo by Memphis photographer William Eggleston — that deft, uncanny approach is evident on tracks like “99th Song,” an ode to a loop pedal that turns out to be a paean to domestic bliss.
“Stoned on music, well, the best kind of high,” he sings. “Got love in my life, and three girls by my side.” Later, the album includes a more straightforward love song: “Every Time I Look At You,” which begins: “Every time I look at you, sparks fly from my eyes.”
At Allen’s birthday party, Vile took a seat next to guitarist DM Hotep at the rear of the stage. “I was playing spacey, bendy Sonic Youth-hybrid leads,” he said afterward. “I felt really calm up there.”
A few days after that party, Vile celebrated the release of Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me at the Triangle Tavern in South Philly, where 200-plus fans lined up to purchase the album and receive a free vegan cheesesteak as a bonus.
Vile headed out with the Violators in June, and checked inbefore a sold-out show at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre this month.
“I’m a little discombobulated today,” he says, ordering a late afternoon large coffee and glazed doughnut. “It was a late night.”
The night before, Vile enjoyed a day off at Festa, a beloved San Fran karaoke bar closing this year he wanted to visit one last time. “I’m shy at first, but then everybody sings and I get up, too.” His go-to is “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks.
The tour, Vile says, “is going good, man.” This trek has made him rethink the streaming era. He’s a fan of physical media, and feels “the past was more simple and honest.”
Philly alt-rock star Kurt Vile at the Silk City Diner on Sunday, May 24, 2026 in Philadelphia. Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
“But now the way people can consume your catalog from streaming, the younger people can binge my catalog like Netflix, and I can tell that they know all of my music. I just feel that people are connected.
“This is my 10th record, and I’ve accumulated all these songs that have emotional qualities combined with a dreamy, pretty, hypnotic thing, and then it rocks live with my electric guitar. It just keeps evolving. The songs are simple enough, but the possibilities are endless.”
On the bus, Vile has been keeping Philly — and Delco — close to his heart.
Kurt Vile in concert at the Union Transfer, Friday, June 3, 2022Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer
“I’m watching Mare of Easttown,” he says. “I never saw it, and now I’m obsessed, just watching all the Delaware County locations and hearing Kate Winslet say a sentence half-Delco, half-British.” He slips into a Winslet impression: “I’m hoping for an an-swer,” and chuckles to himself.
“But it’s my favorite show in a long time,” says Vile, who has Task cued up next. “And it’s got Mannequin Pussy in it. Does the director not know who I am?” he wonders. “I guess I’ve got to get in touch.”
“The timing is interesting, ‘cause I’ve been spending a lot of time in Delco lately,” says Vile, who’s been hanging with his parents and recently dropped in at his old haunt Paul Revere Pizza in Lansdowne. “Now I’m traveling, and I’m touring my Philly record, and I’m loving it. I’m loving being somewhere else and not in Philly every night. But I’m watching Mare of Easttown. And I know I’m gonna love it when I come home.”
Kurt Vile & the Violators with They Are Gutting A Body of Water and Twisted Teens at the Dell Music Center, 2400 Strawberry Mansion Dr. at 7:30 p.m. July 25th, dellmusiccenter.com.
It looks like the antiquarian bookstore of your dreams: a cozy corner storefront, the shelves lined with leather-bound and gilt-edged books. A poetic name is painted on the front window in retro gold letters: Whales & Windmills.
But this new shop in the 1200 block of Pine Street isn’t quite what it seems. The books are old, and surely beautiful. Owner Yaoguang Jiang, however, was aiming for something more specific when she opened the doors in May.
While the volumes in the front room look decidedly 19th century, many in fact are reprints from the middle or late 20th century — books like The Scarlet Letter or The Great Gatsby in handsome Franklin Library editions, or an Easton Press reprint of The Canterbury Tales.
Inside of Whales & Windmills, the bookstore at 1220 Pine St.Peter Dobrin
“What I’m really trying to be is something between a rare bookstore and a used bookstore,” says Jiang.
Antiquarian book dealers may charge hundreds or thousands of dollars for first or early editions of certain titles. But these later editions at Whales & Windmills, while often beautifully bound and embellished with illustrations, might go for $15 to $30 (sometimes more, sometimes less).
“I don’t want to sell super-rare books because it’s counter to my purpose, which is to get people to read books,” says Jiang, a former Penn neuroscience research associate.
Among the many authors currently represented in the shop’s fancy-binding front room are John Galsworthy, James Fenimore Cooper, Pearl Buck, and Louisa May Alcott.
In another room there are traditional used-bookstore paperbacks and hardcovers by Alice Munro, Jane Austen, Saul Bellow, and many others, some for $2 or $3 each.
“We want to be on the one hand curative, selective, but on the other hand approachable. So we want books that are pretty and have another 50 years of shelf life, but not cost-prohibitive,” says Jiang.
Her own favorites?
“Shakespeare is pretty high on the list.”
On her Instagram, she admits to an N. C. Wyeth obsession.
About the bookstore’s name, Jiang says the idea came from a joke her husband made involving Moby-Dick and Don Quixote.
“In the beginning when I started the online business and had zero followers, those were the only two books I could reliably sell.”
The name Whales & Windmills carries another kind of literary resonance.
“It’s in the theme of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility — but whimsical.”
It sends the message that the shop deals in classic literature, “but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
An artifact from a little known colonial-era massacre
A centuries-old rooster-shaped weather vane greets visitors at the Historic Germantown Visitor Center’s new rotating exhibit, “Rebellion and Remembrance in Freedom’s Backyard.” Its metallic feathers are worn from age. Just below the bird’s comb is a scratch that Historic Germantown’s executive director Tuomi Forrest surmises has been repaired.
It’s how the scratch came to be that I find chilling.
The weather vane was once on top of Germantown Presbyterian Church. It was damaged during the Paxton Boys’ Massacres in 1763 amid the turmoil of the French and Indian War. It is a part of Historic Germantown exhibit honoring America’s 250th birthday.Kaila Temple
Historians suggest it came from rocks, stones, or perhaps even gunshots lobbed at the Germantown Reform Church on Market Square by the Paxton Boys, a violent group of revolutionaries who wanted to wipe Indigenous people from Pennsylvania.
In December 1763, a mob of settlers from Paxtang Township, about 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia, murdered 20 unarmed Susquehannock Indians in Lancaster County. A month later, hundreds of these “Paxton Boys” marched toward Philadelphia to harass and kill more Indigenous peoples. Ben Franklin halted the march just outside of Germantown.
The weather vane is part of a rotating exhibit examining Germantown’s place in the Revolutionary War. But it’s also a visceral reminder that when hate goes unchecked and is allowed to linger, it can be explosive.
The Historic Germantown Visitor Center is located at 5501 Germantown Ave. “Rebellion and Remembrance in Freedom’s Backyard” runs through December.
— Elizabeth Wellington
The opening night performance of “Luminiscence Philadelphia: An Immersive Celebration of Light, Music and Story” lights up the interior of the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia on June 11, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
At “Luminiscence Philadelphia,” time, history, and music converge inside the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul.
The church’s barrel arches, Corinthian columns, and copper dome are bathed in atmospheric hues and kaleidoscope imagery. Its walls transform into a singular canvas, filled with dreamscapes that stretch from the altar to its entrance doors.
Across the 45-minute show, produced by Banijay Americas Live, there are scenes of a glimmering palace, a starlit sky, a garden of falling blossoms, and angels resting in the heavens — all reminiscent of Italian Renaissance paintings.
Joseph Blanch of Havertown watches the opening night performance of “Luminiscence Philadelphia: An Immersive Celebration of Light, Music and Story” at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia on Thursday, June 11, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Each vista is shaped by 25 high-definition projectors and 360-degree video mapping. As viewers lift their heads from the church’s pews, they are struck by a full panorama of colors, elevated by a blend of orchestral works.
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and Claude Debussy’s “The Sunken Cathedral” blare from the church’s sound system, while human silhouettes walk along the walls. Their shadowy presence adds to the show’s visual depth.
The opening night performance of “Luminiscence Philadelphia: An Immersive Celebration of Light, Music and Story” lights up the interior of the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia on June 11, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
On select nights, there are live choir and orchestra performances. Yet, even with prerecorded music, the experience is still deeply immersive. The narration, however, can be distracting. It’s difficult to make out what’s being said, other than references to the church’s formation and the nation’s 250th celebration.
But what’s clear is Luminiscence’s allure. It’s an audio-visual experience that aims to enliven basilicas and cathedrals, with respect to their religious significance and architectural wonder. And with its unfurling inside the mother church of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, it successfully melds these distinct worlds – the sacred and the luminary.
“Luminiscence,” the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on 1723 Race St., is open most Wednesday to Sunday nights into August. luminiscence.com/philadelphia
— Earl Hopkins
What is the true value of a dollar?
A wall of artist Kaitlin Pomerantz’s “Rewilded Dollars,” featuring reworked collage designs.Morgan Ritter
A U.S. dollar today doesn’t just represent currency. Artist Kaitlin Pomerantz shows that it also represents centuries of capitalism overriding the importance of the planet.
Pomerantz’s new exhibit “(de)growth” in Studio 105 at Ray Philly exhibits the dollar bill in a more ecological fashion. On one wall of the exhibit hang several dollar bills that look normal from afar, but up close, are completely reworked.
A large prototype of artist Kaitlin Pomerantz’s “Rewilded Dollar” hangs at the entrance of the exhibit. It is a digital collage on adhesive vinyl.Morgan Ritter
Pomerantz eliminated any symbols of political power from the dollar bill, cutting them up and collaging them to highlight the environmental aspects that exist on the dollar bill. Rather than the ecosystem being taken over by capitalism, “(de)growth“ imagines a world where nature reclaims itself.
Included in the exhibit are living plant installations placed in deliberately fractured ceramic pots, showing the damage we have already done to the environment, but that it can still regrow.
A collection of ceramics and living plant installations, representing artist Kaitlin Pomerantz’s emphasis on the importance of ecological growth.Morgan Ritter
It was nice to walk around the exhibit, imagining a world where the U.S. government places emphasis on protecting the environment and valuing the natural world around us. That being said, feelings of melancholy soon followed, remembering how damaging the ecological impact from capitalism has been.
Pomerantz powerfully calls out how political domination has caused government powers to lose sight of what’s really important.
It’s easy not to think about the meaning behind the design of the dollar bill. Pomerantz’s vision of changing it to be centered around the planet offers an almost optimistic perspective of what could be valued someday if oppressive systems are dismantled.
“(de)growth” by Kaitlin Pomerantz, is on view through Aug. 2 at Studio 105 at Ray Philly, open Wednesday through Sunday from noon-6 p.m.
— Morgan Ritter
An earlier version of the article had an incorrect name of the exhibition at Ray Philly. It is called “(de)growth.”
Two great new moves by Tara Finder at the Biscuit Lady’sPlymouth Meeting location: later hours on weekends (till 8 p.m. for dine-in or takeout) and a chicken biscuit sandwich that’s only available after 2:30 p.m.. The Maddie J is 5 ounces of crispy fried chicken juiciness, a slice of American cheese, and a swipe of house Buffalo sauce. There’s a huge crunch and a zingy kick, but keep your plate handy because the light, flaky biscuit can barely contain all that goodness. It’s the perfect late-day counterpoint to morning specialties, such as the smash burger with bacon, fried egg, and jalapeño pimento cheese (Don’t Go Bacon My Heart) and the cheesesteak riff with ribeye, Cooper sharp, egg, and onion (the Stella). The Biscuit Lady, 115 Plymouth Rd., Plymouth Meeting, 484-243-6957,visitthebiscuitlady.com
— Michael Klein
Three weekly specials from Royal Tavern’s July-only hot dog menu. From left: a fried Diamondback Dog wrapped in bacon with salsa and beans, an Old Bay Bomber topped with Old Bay macaroni salad and crab, and Barrel It Up The Bronx topped with onion sauce and brown mustard.Craig LaBan / Staff
Dog Days hot dog specials at Royal Tavern
If you grew up in a hot dog culture like I did, devouring every Coney I could find in metro Detroit, the snap of the natural casing on Royal Tavern’s bespoke wieners is a flashback revelation. The Bella Vista bar’s third annual Dog Days of Summer event is in full throttle through the end of July, and they’re not serving skinless franks — the industrial norm — here. The taut-yet-delicate resistance on these artisanal links unleashes a savory rush of meaty juice, the pureed pork-beef blend harboring a balanced soupçon of coriander, garlic, and applewood smoke.
Royal Tavern chef Nic Macri — whose butchery chops are still intact from his charcuterie run with La Divisa at Reading Terminal Market — began Dog Days two years ago as a labor of love to boost the bar’s typical summer doldrums. He ended up selling over 5,000 dogs that first July, then 7,000 in 2025, limiting it once again to the month due to the logistical challenge of transforming his small kitchen into a temporary frankfurter factory. This year, the restaurant aims to hit 10,000. To do so, Macri has turned to Happy Valley Meats to co-pack its proprietary recipe with responsibly-raised meats.
But the creative challenge is still considerable: Four new preparations are unveiled every Monday for five weeks, pairing different techniques (steamed, chargrilled, fried, griddled) with an array of flavor toppings. No modifications allowed. I was charmed by the Baltimore-themed picnic of a dog last week topped with Old Bay macaroni salad and a scoop of fresh crab. But the purist in me kept returning to the Bronx-inspired steamer topped with saucy onions and brown mustard that still allowed that quality link to shine. There will be new cast of dogs next week themed to the World Cup, then a final quad dog bracket to bring it home, culminating in all 24 returning July 31 to celebrate a month of memorable wiener studies. The chef insists it will then be time to return to the fall programming of burgers, smoked beef, and fish sandwiches, no matter how much I plead our case: If Macri hasn’t turned Philly into a true hot dog town by then, no one can.
Royal Tavern, 937 Passyunk Ave., 215-389-6694, royaltavern.com
— Craig LaBan
Loaded fries at El Sazón R.D., 1030 N. Second St.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Loaded fries at El Sazón R.D.
El Sazón R.D. in Northern Liberties only serves three things: smash burgers, empanadas, and fries — all with a Dominican twist. Luckily, it does them extremely well. The smash burgers have a crisp, lacy edge and come topped with queso de freir, a fried slab of slightly salty white cheese that elevates the sandwich from just a burger into something I’d wait in line for.
The limited menu’s true hero, however, are the loaded fries. The dish is a decadent play on salchipapas — a street food ubiquitous across Latin America that combines fries with cut-up hot dog links — that comes with cubes of queso de freir and two hefty drizzles of tangy mayo-ketchup. The franks are juicy enough that they pop in your mouth, while cubing and frying the white cheese basically renders them into delectable cheese curds. Beware, though: These fries are very heavy, a meal in and of themselves that I often have to follow up with a nap. El Sazón R.D., 1030 N. Second St., 917-920-1316, elsazon-rd.com
— Beatrice Forman
Gyu-don at Haha’s Kitchen, a food cart that typically parks at 471 N. Seventh St. in Spring Garden.Kiki Aranita /
Gyu-don at Haha’s Kitchen
When Shikoku, Japan, native Shiho Utsunomiya first came to Philadelphia in 2000 and tried a Philly cheesesteak, she exclaimed, “This is a gyu-don! Well, the meat is anyway.” Eighteen years later, she began serving a chipsteak-based gyu-don at her food truck, Haha’s Kitchen (“Haha” means “mother” in Japanese), which typically parks in Spring Garden. The $10 bowl has tremendously tender beef, laced through with sweet, slow-cooked onions and decorated with a neon pink crown of pickled ginger. Served over steamed kokuho rice, it’s decadent and filling, and perhaps one of the best lunch deals in town.
It’s also a marvel to watch Utsunomiya doing absolutely everything in the cart, from taking orders to preparing a large menu that encompasses American lunch standards like Italian sausage and hot dogs to chicken karaage, onigiri, and of course, this magnificent gyu-don. The best part of lunch may be witnessing how her cheerful but fierce independence comes to bear in the small kitchen. Utsunomiya worked at the now-closed Hikaru in between bearing and raising children, “but it’s very difficult to have kids and work in a restaurant kitchen,” she said. You should also grab one of the $3.50 tuna mayo onigiri for later. Generously sized and lovingly made, it tastes like a Japanese mother tucked it into your lunchbox. Haha’s Kitchen, 471 N. Seventh St., instagram.com/hahas_kitchen
Birthdays are a funny thing. When you’re young, they are all about getting older. You can hardly wait for the next one.
Then, somewhere along the way, they’re not. Suddenly, big league baseball players, your doctors, and bosses are all younger than you.
Eventually, getting older becomes key again. You want to see more birthdays.
This week I celebrated a birthday of my own, and also photographed a World War II veteran celebrating his 100th. I also photographed church services for an upcoming story on a South Jersey town a century after it was incorporated as the first Black self-governing municipality north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
President Donald Trump is seen on a monitor as he appears at a Defense and Innovation Summit hosted by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick at the US Army War College in Carlisle Wednesday, July 15, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
And I photographed a president, who unlike most of my coworkers and the folks I usually photograph, grew up before the internet and listened to music as it transitioned from Tony Bennett and Perry Como to Bill Haley & His Comets and Elvis.
Technicans prepare the lighting and microphones before President Trump appears at the Summit.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
One of the ways I marked by birthday was by visiting the Main Line Camera Club as their guest speaker. Meeting people who appreciate photography is one of the things that keeps me young. That along with the joy I get from making and sharing photos.
They had many good images but one that stood out for a “different” photo that Jeffrey Benne took during the recent visit by Union Pacific’s famed Big Boy No. 4014, the world’s largest operating steam locomotive. My colleague Monica Herndon also photographed the big engine that could, but until I saw she was headed to Reading, I had no knowledge of it.
After Googling, my social feed exploded with videos and photos of the train along its historic coast-to-coast tour to celebrate America’s 250th. I even heard traffic reports on KYW radio as it approached Philadelphia that weekend begging drivers to quit being foolish by stopping on the Schuylkill Expressway and getting out of their cars to photograph it passing by, being a bunch of train “foamers” (a term I just learned this week).
Benne arrived in Bridgeport, Pa. 45 minutes before Big Boy’s arrival, staking his claim “on a piece of ground then played with the settings on my gear to get a good shot,” with just about 45 seconds to get it passing by.
Afterward, he said he noticed the crowd searching the tracks and realized they were looking for smooshed coins, having set regular coins on the track minutes before. “I should have done that myself,” he said.
Growing up, my friends and I did that, and usually had little luck finding our own “smooshed” pennies.
Cupcakes – including one with a topping depicting the iconic Joe Rosenthal photo of U.S. Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima – at a 100th birthday party for WWII Marine veteran Stephen Anderson.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Pat Dailey, setting up the birthday party in the photo at the top, founded the Tun Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit that supports veteran causes, Masonic charities, and educational scholarships. They are also rebuilding and reestablishing an authentic reproduction of the original Tun Tavern building in Philadelphia. The Tun, constructed in 1693, was the first documented lodge in North America and the birthplace of the U.S. Marine Corps in (1775).
Photographing workers setting up for the Red Carpet on Independence Hall was my only contribution to our coverage of Philly’s hosting the MLB All-Star Game for the first time in 30 years (I did cover THAT game).
Preparations are underway on the Mall at Independence National Historical Park Monday, for the All-Star Red Carpet Show on Tuesday.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
I made the Independence Mall prep photo during an early morning check-in on the President’s House site, something I have been doing for months.
There was nothing new on the site that morning, since I had found National Park Service employees a week earlier taking photos and measurements, and looking under, behind, and above the panels. They told me they were “just looking around” and not there to install the new Trump administration panels after a federal appeals court gave the go-ahead just before the Fourth of July weekend.
A National Park Service employee along with a NPS ranger and NPS police officer visit the President’s House site Wednesday, July 8, 2026. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
But unlike the original January removal and the subsequent court-ordered return months later, they did it in the middle of the night, avoiding public scrutiny.
A U.S. Parks police officer and a visitor at the President’s House site Wednesday, July 15, 2026 after new panels were installed.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
The trailer gives us the full Rocky nostalgia package: the meat locker, the Art Museum steps, the original score, and Stallone refusing to let anyone else play the boxer he created. It could all be unbearably corny (it probably is).
And yet, when that music kicks in, you kind of want to run up some steps.
Philadelphia already has three Rocky statues and has spent 50 years treating a fictional boxer like a founding father. Somehow, this movie may make us love him even more.
John Burns Jr., of Grays Ferry, sits at the Cherry Street Pier amid wildfire smoke from Canada on Thursday.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Going outside: F
First, the heat index soared into the triple digits. Then Canadian wildfire smoke rolled in.
This week, simply stepping outside came with a list of disclaimers. Don’t exercise, limit your time outdoors, keep kids inside. People with asthma, heart disease, and other health conditions were urged to avoid going out altogether. The Phillies even moved up a game because the air quality wasn’t safe enough.
Summer in Philadelphia is supposed to mean block parties, concerts, long walks, baseball games, and dinners outside. Instead, this week felt like the weather was actively negotiating against every plan you tried to make.
Philadelphia Phillies fans boo the Houston Astros after batting practice ahead of baseball’s World Series Game 5 at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022, in Philadelphia.Charles Fox / Staff Photographer
In Philadelphia, booing isn’t always about hate. Sometimes it’s acknowledgment or respect, but mainly it’s just our way of making sure everyone knows they’re in our house. The louder the boos, the bigger the moment.
People acted like Phillies fans had violated some sacred baseball etiquette, when in reality they were giving the rest of the country exactly what it came to see.
Kids on bikes ride on Citizens Bank Park with fireworks during the MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday, July 14, 2026 in Philadelphia.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Citizens Bank Park spent two nights showing off on baseball’s biggest stage, and by the end of the All-Star Game, players from around the league were saying what Phillies fans have believed all along. Freddie Freeman called it his favorite place to play. Others raved about the atmosphere, the crowd, and the city itself.
For years, The Bank has lived in the shadow of baseball’s older cathedrals — Fenway, Wrigley, Dodger Stadium. It doesn’t have ivy-covered walls or a century of history. What it does have is 43,000 people who treat a Tuesday in May like Game 7 of the World Series and somehow crank it up another level when the spotlight gets brighter.
So the All-Star Game wasn’t just a showcase of baseball’s best players, but also a showcase of one of baseball’s best ballparks.
Professional food critic meets professional critics: A
Millions of people know him as @ChefReactions, the social media creator who makes a living critiquing food videos. Philadelphia, meanwhile, has thousands of self-appointed cheesesteak critics who do it for free. It was an inevitable friendship.
Around here, telling you exactly what we think isn’t considered rude. It’s our version of customer service.
A $5 ride to the Shore: A
We miss you, Megabus.
Pacifico’s new $5 Shore Shuttle, offering round-trip rides from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore on weekends, feels like it belongs in 2014, not 2026. Sure, this one comes with a beer sponsor, a swag bag, and a very specific schedule, according to Philly Voice. And yes, anyone who’s ever ridden a too-good-to-be-true bus deal has probably spent an unexpected hour in a Walmart parking lot wondering whether they’d ever make it home.
That’s part of the adventure.
If someone else wants to deal with the gas, tolls, Parkway traffic, and parking while you spend less than the price of a Wawa hoagie, that’s a pretty good deal — especially in this economy.
Maybe you’ve heard: Some singer and a tight end got married earlier this month.
The Swift-Kelce wedding (allegedly?) took place at Madison Square Garden, a venue with all the whimsy and romance of a Forman Mills. For a while, though, there was plenty of speculation the celebration would happen in idyllic Westerly, R.I., where Taylor Swift owns a beachfront mansion.
This patchwork of villages, coves, and carousel-dotted shoreline borders Block Island Sound and somehow manages to feel quiet despite its celebrity cachet. It’s a little Gilded Age, a little Jaws’ Amity Island, and a whole lot of money if you’re staying at the area’s marquee hotels.
This itinerary takes you to both — just not to sleep — along with lighthouses, diners, and beaches. It’s pushing Field Trip’s self-imposed five-hour driving limit from Philly, but it’s worth the haul. Better yet, pair it with our Newport or Mystic itineraries for a longer New England getaway. Start the car.
A devastating fire in 2025 nearly cooked the Cooked Goose for good. Thankfully, by March the beloved Watch Hill breakfast spot had reopened, with owners Andrew Nathan and Jennifer Gibson once again serving mortadella egg-and-cheese sandwiches, buttermilk biscuits and gravy, and cinnamon roll pancakes in a powder-blue dining room lined with local art.
If money is no object, stay at Ocean House or Weekapaug Inn. The rest of us should look at Shelter Harbor Inn. Built in 1800 and renovated in 2019, the 22-room property feels more like a refined country estate than a beach hotel, with exposed rafters, fireplaces, mature gardens, and a peaceful setting that’s still less than 10 minutes from the shoreline. Summer rooms can still dip into the low $200s, leaving enough in the budget for a treatment at the on-site spa.
📍 10 Wagner Rd., Westerly, R.I. 02891
Visit: Westerly Museum of American Impressionism
Housed in a low-slung, cerulean-blue building along the river, the Westerly Museum of American Impressionism is a must-visit for art hounds. The private collection features works from the 1880s to the 1920s by John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, and other impressionists displayed in naturally lit galleries. Wilson Henry Irvine’s A Summer Afternoon seems an appropriate place to start.
📍 79 Watch Hill Rd., Westerly, R.I. 02891
Play: Atlantic Beach
Atlantic Beach stretches like a long hammock between the residential neighborhoods of Weekapaug and Misquamicut, with one main street, Atlantic Avenue, running through. The gentle surf of the sound rolls up to the golden-tan sand, and if you’re visiting with kids, circa-1921 Atlantic Beach Park gives vintage amusement vibes with its carousel and arcade. The park also operates Windjammer Surf Bar, serving lobster rolls (mayo or butter), coconut shrimp, and banana splits right on the beach.
Watch Hill is a pretty good name for a place to put a lighthouse. There’s been a beacon on this finger of land pointing toward the maritime nexus of Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut since before the Revolution, with the current Watch Hill Lighthouse standing since 1856. While you can’t climb the gray granite tower, the breakwater-bordered grounds offer lovely views of Block Island Sound, and there’s a small, free museum packed with history about the lighthouse, shipwrecks, and storms.
From the Civil War until 2003, Ocean House watched over Block Island Sound from its blufftop perch. After decades of decline, the iconic resort was painstakingly demolished and rebuilt board for board into the elegant butter-yellow landmark that stands today. Even if you’re not staying overnight, stop by the Verandah Raw Bar for oysters and cocktails overlooking the water.
Every Sunday through Aug. 23, Weekapaug Inn transforms its sweeping waterfront lawn into the Coastal Grille Series. Guests and locals gather in Adirondack chairs overlooking Quonochontaug Pond while feasting on buffet favorites like clam chowder, tomato-and-peach panzanella, brisket sliders, smoked baby back ribs, s’mores tarts, and cupcakes inspired by Rhode Island’s beloved Del’s Lemonade. Advance reservations are required.
My new-to-the-area coworker keeps calling Wawa “waWa” where she emphasizes the second syllable more than the first. The first time it happened, I just made sure to say it correctly so she’d get the hint. It didn’t work. The second time, I let it go. The third time, I told her the deal but was maybe too subtle because I didn’t want to seem rude. Now, she’s still saying it that way. And to be clear: she has no distinguishable accent. Do I say something more explicitly or has the time passed? I’m trying to help!
Dugan Arnett, Life & Culture reporter
First of all, I fear I’m not going to be much help on this one, because this is the best thing I’ve heard in months and I’m 1,000% going to be calling it “waWA” from now on. Infinitely more fun to say.
Stephanie Farr, features columnist
As someone who was a transplant many moons ago, I say to you, a recent Philly transplant, that is not going to go well.
I’m not even sure how to pronounce that. The closest I’m coming up with similar is a-HA, like the second syllable is a surprise.
Dugan Arnett
Wa-WAH???
Honestly, mispronouncing words to make them sound more fun is one of my favorite things. I’ve been calling her Lady guh-GAH for years.
Are we sure the coworker isn’t doing this on purpose?
Stephanie Farr
I am married to someone who does that and it drives me bananas! I remember when we were dating I brought it up to my female coworkers, like “I don’t know if I can live with this guy mispronouncing and making up words on purpose. I’m an English major, damn it, and he’s not Shakespeare!” They told me if that was my biggest problem with the guy to get over it. I accepted it, but I have never gotten over it.
So you make a good point that this person could be doing it on purpose. How do you pronounce Wawa?
Dugan Arnett
Well, from now on I’ll be pronouncing it “waWA.”
I think you’re looking at this all wrong. This is an excellent quality in a partner, the greenest of flags. I’d like to have a beer with your husband so we can mispronounce a bunch of words together. Plus, he might very well be Shakespeare. We don’t know.
As for the coworker, you’ve got to let her cook.
Stephanie Farr
He’s from Delco so he’s definitely not Shakespeare. Let me tell you and our reader a story. I moved to Philly from a land where hoagies were called subs. In my first few months here, I stopped at the deli counter of the Fresh Grocer in West Philly and ordered a “roast beef sub” and the worker behind the counter loudly and publicly shamed me in front of all the other waiting customers. “We don’t call it a sub ‘round here! What do we call it?” the employee asked the small crowd. “A hoagie!” they yelled at me. I never called it a sub again.
Philadelphians will embarrass the hell out of you for word choice and pronunciation, but it’s almost always to save you further embarrassment down the road. So public shaming is one avenue the reader could take.
Dugan Arnett
That does sound like a rather sobering event. I suppose I can see wanting to spare someone that same indignity.
I get the sense that this coworker might be immune to public shaming, though. She’s already been corrected three times and is still holding strong. I respect the dedication.
Stephanie Farr
Another method I might suggest to this person is to flood the newcomer with Wawa-related media, in which the word Wawa is properly pronounced. Maybe be like, “Hey did you ever see this Jason & Kylie Kelce Wawa commercial?” or “Have you heard the Hoagiefest playlist on Spotify?” Repetition could work, and over time it probably will. No matter how long you want to hold on to the correct or mispronunciation of a word, Philly’s hoagie mouth has a way of seeping in. I say this as someone who used to say water and now says wooder.
Dugan Arnett
Flood the zone. I like it.
Stephanie Farr
If this person really wants to help their new coworker, they should not only stress the correct pronunciation of Wawa, but also the correct pronunciation of ack-A-me.
Dugan Arnett
I just want everybody to get along. Is that too much to ask?
T’is the season for outdoor movie screenings! We’ll show you a photo of a free film showing in taken in the Philly-area, you drop a pin where you think it was taken. Closer to the location results in a better score. Good luck!
Round #42
Question 1
Where are these moviegoers set up?
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ClickTap on map to guess the location in the photo
ClickTap again to change your guess and hit submit when you're happy
You will be scored at the end. The closer to the location the better the score
Kerry Hyland / Handout
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
These moviegoers are camped out by the Schuylkill at the Robert A. Borski, Jr. Park in Northeast Philly. Fairmount Park Conservancy summer film screenings hosted by local Park Friends groups started in June, with many more scheduled through October.
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Question 2
Where is this crowd waiting for the film to start?
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Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
Where else would you watch an outdoor screening of National Treasure? "Movies on the Mall" hosts a series of plein-air movie nights showcasing stories that celebrate the themes and history of Independence National Historical Park.
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Question 3
Where are these people camped out?
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Ashcon Zand / Handout
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
These neighbors are gathered at La Noce Park between Wissahickon Creek and the Schuylkill for a free outdoor movie night.
Your Score
ARank
🎟️Amazing work. That’s a box office hit!
BRank
🎞️Good stuff. Your answers were the reel deal.
CRank
🎥 C is a passing grade; but this wasn’t an award-worthy performance.
DRank
🎬Cut! D isn’t great – take five and try again.
FRank
🎥We don’t want to say you failed, but this round is a flop.
You beat % of other Inquirer readers.
We’ll be back next Saturday for another round of Citywide Quest.
It’s possible that nobody knows the stretch of Brandywine River that meanders through the heart of Wilmington better than Missy Morrissey.
Since her sister Susan’s battered body was discovered there nearly seven years ago, the West Chester native regularly returns to its banks, mulling a question:
How exactly did the 50-year-old Delaware County schoolteacher arrive in the shallows more than three miles downriver from where her car was found abandoned early on a July morning in 2019 in what authorities said was a homicide?
And how, she wonders, has the crime gone unsolved for all these years?
Susan Morrissey, who had been sipping wine and texting with friends into the early morning hours, left her Wilmington home just after 3 a.m. for reasons unknown, authorities said, and turned up dead in the river hours later.
Surveillance cameras captured Morrissey’s black Honda Civic as it left her home and headed to the gates of a nearby office building, where it was parked haphazardly and left unlocked with her cell phone and purse inside.
It was not until about four hours later that a construction worker discovered Morrissey’s body floating in the water miles away near the Northeast Boulevard bridge. She had died from blunt force trauma and drowning, the medical examiner found.
A photo of Susan Morrissey.Missy Morrissey
Investigators can’t say for sure how Morrissey’s body made it to the opposite side of town, though they believe she was alive when she entered the river and that she did not do so near where her car was parked.
“A friend refers to it as ‘the magic carpet ride,’” Missy Morrissey said of the distance between her sister’s car and where her body was discovered. “We just can’t figure anything out.”
It’s a puzzle that brings Missy Morrissey, the oldest of four siblings, back to the Brandywine each year, where she lays a bouquet of roses to honor her sister’s memory.
But this year, as yet another anniversary of Morrissey’s July 23 death nears, her family has begun to wonder whether after years of efforts to uncover the truth, her killer may never be found.
“On the first anniversary in 2020, I couldn’t have imagined that we would be sitting here in 2026 talking about this,” said Meg Morrissey Heinicke, the second-youngest of Susan’s siblings. “I would say time doesn’t heal all wounds. It is just as painful this year as the first year, the second year, the third year.”
Homicide detectives with the Delaware State Police say the investigation continues, but they have no suspects or motive, and there are no new developments in a crime that has divided the Wilmington and Chester County communities and drawn attention from true-crime podcasts and amateur sleuths across the country.
Missy Morrissey appreciates that people have taken an interest in her sister’s death long after it faded from the headlines.
Still, she and her family just want the crime solved.
A sister with flair
Susan Morrissey did just about everything with flair, her siblings said.
She grew up around West Chester and Wilmington and attended the city’s prestigious Tatnall School before heading to Georgetown University and later to San Francisco State, where she earned a master’s degree and began her career as an educator at a public school in a low-income Bay Area neighborhood.
Morrissey volunteered often, her siblings said, working with young people at a juvenile detention facility and devoting hours to an animal rescue, where she combed frigid Northern California beaches for stranded sea lions.
She was the first to read up on far-flung conflicts and the world’s injustices, and she loved sitting with a book on the beach in Stone Harbor.
It was she who recommended Noam Chomsky tomes and George Carlin stand-up specials to her less-enlightened siblings, they said. Everything from her CD collection to her handwriting oozed taste and personality.
The Morrissey siblings (from left: John, Meg, Missy, Susan).Missy Morrissey
“I don’t know how many people feel this way, but I kind of felt like the coolest person in the world happened to be in my family,” said John Morrissey Jr., the youngest of the siblings.
Morrissey eventually returned east and, after a disappointing stint of online dating in her 40s, reconnected with a former schoolmate, Ben Ledyard, an investment consultant and a regular on the Wilmington social scene.
The two soon wed, and each weekday morning, Morrissey drove to Pennsylvania to teach English at Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill, Delaware County, where she worked for 13 years until her death on July 23, 2019.
Her brother now lives in Virginia but regularly returns home to the Brandywine Valley, where visits have begun to trouble him.
With each crossing of a bridge, each riverside drive, he said, a reminder of his sister’s killing lurks beneath the river’s surface.
“Susan liked true crime,” he said, “especially local crime.”
The mystery of her death, he said, is “exactly the kind of case that Susan would have been interested in.”
A body in the water
Even after all these years, Missy Morrissey still has the texts saved to her phone.
It was 12:29 a.m., she said, and the sisters casually exchanged messages while Susan Morrissey relaxed with a glass of wine on the back porch of her Riverview Avenue home.
She was a night owl, her sister said, and often stayed up late chatting with family or friends, especially during her summer break from school. Morrissey, she said, had been looking forward to attending a Rolling Stones concert with her husband at Lincoln Financial Field the next evening.
Phone records showed that Morrissey texted with friends and updated her storefront on Poshmark, an e-commerce site for secondhand fashion, until 2:45 a.m.
Then at 3:02 a.m., a nearby security camera captured Morrissey’s car leaving her driveway, according to Delaware State Police. It traveled around a mile through Wilmington to Walker’s Mill, a historic riverside property that had been converted into offices.
In the dark of night, however, detectives who later reviewed the footage could not determine who drove the vehicle to Walker’s Mill or see who left the car after it was parked.
Map of Wilmington, Del., showing locations in the death of Susan Morrissey, whose death seven years ago remains unsolved.John Duchneskie
What happened in the nearly five hours between the car’s arrival at Walker’s Mill and the discovery of Morrissey’s body downriver remains a mystery. Investigators say they have not determined why Morrissey would have entered the water that morning.
“She got her injuries close in time to when she died, and she died close in time to when her body was found” at 7:39 a.m., said Detective Daniel Grassi of the Delaware State Police.
He believes she may have entered the river anywhere from the Brandywine Zoo to the 16th Street Bridge, more than two miles downriver from her vehicle.
A water tower is seen from the top of the Northeast Boulevard Bridge in Wilmington, Del., on Friday, June 26, 2026. Susan Morrissey, a schoolteacher in Delaware County, was killed in Wilmington, Del., seven years ago this summer. Her body was found in the Brandywine River near the Northeast Boulevard Bridge.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
Using data from Morrissey’s Fitbit device, investigators have pieced together the barest of timelines from that morning.
The tracker did not record Morrissey’s GPS location, so investigators cannot trace her movements, but they know she walked about a mile within an hour of her vehicle arriving at Walker’s Mill.
And at 7 a.m., the device stopped recording her heartbeat.
“I don’t know why she left the house at 3 a.m., and I don’t know what she was doing between 3 and 7,” Grassi said. “That four-and-a-half hour gap is a major issue with the investigation.”
What happened to Susan?
At her West Chester home, Missy Morrissey, 58, keeps hundreds of pages of notes and documents related to her sister’s case, making her something of an in-house historian of the family’s tragedy.
Since 2019, she has studied the river’s edge between Walker’s Mill and the Northeast Boulevard Bridge, poring over maps, interviewing store owners and strangers, and posting flyers seeking information about the killing near where Susan Morrissey may have been.
It is not only the lack of a suspect that vexes her. Police have not detailed the cause or extent of Morrissey’s injuries, beyond saying that they were traumatic.
Morrissey had been home alone that evening while her husband attended a screening of a documentary about the jam band Phish along with a friend. When he came home, Ledyard told investigators, he and Morrissey sharedhalf a bottle of wine before he took a sleep aid and went to bed around 11 p.m.
Delaware State Police Master Cpl. Michael Austin speaks in 2019 to brief reporters about updates in the death of Susan Morrissey Ledyard. With him were her brother, John (second to left), and husband, Ben (third from left).Katie Park/Staff
He said he had no idea what happened to his wife — a woman he told reporters was “the love of my life, my best friend” — until police came to the house around 9:30 the next morning to tell him she was dead.
Ledyard could not be reached for comment.
Two years after Morrissey’s death, Ledyard remarried, and in 2023 he was charged with assault for attacking his wife with a marble figurine and smashing her head into the floor after she asked him to turn down loud music on New Year’s Day.
He pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and was sentenced to two years in prison.
The charges brought fresh attention to the Morrissey case and fueled internet speculation that he could have harmed his former wife.
But police say he is not a suspect in the homicide and has cooperated fully with law enforcement.
‘A hope you desperately cling to’
Morrissey’s parents, Serena and John, died last year at 89 and 91 — without learning what happened to their daughter and without seeing anyone brought to justice for the crime.
John Morrissey’s death from advanced dementia came just two days after the anniversary of his daughter’s death.
“It’s been a tough year for our family,” said Meg Morrissey Heinicke, who lives in San Francisco. “This year’s anniversary feels particularly sad and painful.”
Yet there remains “a hope that you desperately cling to” that the case will be solved, she said.
Susan Morrissey with her nieces and nephew. Missy Morrissey
In honor of their sister, the siblings started the Susan Morrissey Foundation, which awards an annual scholarship to an Academy Park student for excellence in English, a small way of keeping her memory and love of the written word alive.
In their quest for answers, the family has promised a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
“I just want us to have some answers,” Missy Morrissey said of the family’s ongoing grief. “I don’t think that any of us can really process, or go on, without knowing.”
Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to call detectives with the Delaware State Police at 302-365-8441 or email daniel.grassi@delaware.gov.
Hidden deep in the Orange Crush heart of the Jersey Shore, there’s a beloved dive bar near West Wildwood’s bay that ignores all the common rules of commerce and good cooking. And yet its ceiling is covered in money and its unlikely hit sandwich is a Reuben made with … scallops?!
Not far away in Cape May, a new Italian restaurant is also doing things differently, crafting extraordinary meals from the highest quality ingredients ― with eye-popping prices to match. At the other end of the dining spectrum, there’s a destination-worthy cutlet sandwich in Sea Isle City and a hot new cheesesteak stand on the Wildwood boardwalk where the crowds come in hopes of glimpsing the owner, an alleged former mob boss who’s refashioned himself as a South Philly sandwich king. A very different kind of celebrity in the making — a giant seagull mascot — is aiming to energize a lively new outdoor restaurant and bar in Avalon and give fresh meaning to “Go Birds!”
Such eating adventures across the southern end of the Jersey Shore this summer were an exploration of dining culture extremes, but never dull and frequently delicious.
These 11 places from Cape May to Ocean City are the ones I’ll remember most.
Dollars hanging from the ceiling at Westside Saloon in West Wildwood, N.J. Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
WEST WILDWOOD
Westside Saloon
Everyone talks about the dollar bills tacked to the ceiling of the Westside Saloon like Monopoly money confetti, the result of a barroom challenge that’s added a distinctive dive bar quirkiness to this venerable tavern on the tiny isle of West Wildwood. To me, however, those bills are the least intriguing aspect of the Westside Saloon, as this watering hole — which dates to Prohibition and was once known as the Bridge Cafe — was renamed in 2003. My eyes are drawn to the crates of ripe fruit stacked near the front door, set to be juiced daily for the lineup of dangerously smooth crush cocktails made with all-natural ingredients — orange, grapefruit, pineapple, watermelon — shaken with vodka (or tequila) and seltzer. “My mother always told me that drinking would get me nowhere,” says the bar’s manager and chef, Billy Scott, 52. “But it’s worked out pretty well for me here. These drinks are my babies. They make people smile, and I’m definitely the King of the Crush now.”
The saloon is owned by the McCoy and Keating families, but Scott, a family friend, is also the culinary mind responsible for the strokes of whimsy — or cheese crimes against seafood, depending on your perspective — that have prompted the Westside Saloon to tout itself as a “five-star dive bar” that’s booming despite an independent streak with its hours (“We open when we feel like it; we close when we feel like it”) and a published phone number that’s never answered because they ripped the phone off the wall 15 years ago. (“It wouldn’t stop ringing.”)
A bartender making crush cocktails at the Westside Saloon in West Wildwood.Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
That reclusive attitude hasn’t slowed the crowds that wander into this trapezoid-shaped building for one of the 28 seats at the trapezoid-shaped bar (or 40 outdoor seats) to listen to live music and indulge in one of the Shore’s most unusual seafood menus, headlined by the iconic scallop Reuben. It’s an odd combination that by most conventions should not work, but Scott has access to some of the best ingredients on the East Coast through nearby Dock Street Seafood. The plump Jersey scallops offer a meaty alternative to corned beef, with a briny sweetness that harmonizes with the tangy sauerkraut, piquant Swiss cheese, and butter-toasted rye. It’s not Scott’s only seafood and dairy gambit. The stuffed long hot pepper is exploding with fresh crab and provolone, a prosciutto wrap, and a Gorgonzola finish. There’s so much crustacean in the she-crab soup that our spoon nearly stood up straight. (If it had been hotter, it would have been perfect.) Sesame-seared local tuna comes piled over crisped wonton chips for Asian nachos. But Scott’s most audacious creation is the option to order your seafood “blue,” a marinara sauce blended with Gorgonzola that added an unexpectedly appealing cave-aged funk to our bountiful seafood pasta.
Seared tuna nachos at the Westside Saloon in West Wildwood, N.J.Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
For those averse to seafood spectacles, the Westside’s chicken wings and “volcanic eruption” burger (a cheese-stuffed patty topped with bacon and long hots) also have fans. But what surprised me most was that the saloon makes its own desserts, including a towering key lime pie and an Oreo-encrusted cheesecake we could not stop eating. This won’t be news to anyone who knows how much passion Scott and his crew, who also recently bought a bakery, have put into making this iconoclastic institution so much more than a random dive bar.
“The only thing artificial here are my initials — B.S.,” says Scott. “When you come to the Westside Saloon, everything else is real.”
Westside Saloon, 770 W. Glenwood Ave., West Wildwood, N.J. 08260, no phone; on Facebook
Chef Alfredo Dapi rolls out pasta for pistachio gnocchi in the kitchen at Il Riccio in Cape May, N.J. Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
CAPE MAY
Il Riccio
There are so many Italian restaurants at the Jersey Shore, I was not particularly excited about the prospect of yet another, especially considering the newcomer most recommended to me this offseason by my local sources was located in a turnstile Cape May address where I’ve reviewed three different restaurants since 2003.
Chef Alfredo Dapi pauses while making pistachio gnocchi in the kitchen at Il Riccio in Cape May.Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
Number four — Il Riccio — turns out to be anything but ordinary, and not simply because the lofty prices, with dinner entrees ranging from $38 to triple digits, will make you wonder if the food is gilded. In fact, it is. But the shimmering stamps of 24-karat gold hovering above the cacio e pepe risotto are not the prime reason this showstopper dinner indulgence costs $99. That would be the quarter-pound of meltingly rich A5 Wagyu tenderloin from Hokkaido that comes seared on top, as well as the raisiny sweet swirls of reduced Amarone wine, not to mention the coveted seven-year-old aged Acquerello rice that’s cooked to al dente perfection by chef Alfredo Dapi for 19 minutes on the dot, adding the imported butter from Parma and pecorino cheese only at the end to keep it light.
“We wanted a dish that touched all the senses — sweet, salty, sour, and bitter,” says Il Riccio’s gregarious co-owner Luca Cimmarotta, 52, a Tuscan winemaker, olive oil producer, and importer who, since his earlier days as a sommelier for both Aldo Lamberti and Georges Perrier, has always wanted to open an Italian restaurant that made no compromises when it came to quality.
Il Riccio in Cape May, N.J.Ted Nghiem / For The InquirerPistachio gnocchi at Il Riccio in Cape May, N.J. Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
That is exactly what he’s done at Il Riccio (“the sea urchin” in Italian), the posh 50-seat BYOB he opened a year ago in a Victorian bungalow beside Collier’s Liquors with his wife, Stefania Chiaro, 46, who works in the kitchen, and their son, Michele Cimmarotta, 21, who charms the dining room as lead server.
Our night, he was offering a wild fresh Holland Dover sole whose beguilingly firm texture, delicate flavor, and roe sack (a bonus!) were expertly deboned tableside, and tasted clearly superior to the more common farm-raised and prefrozen sole found elsewhere for a third of Il Riccio’s $135 price. That includes a side of spaghetti alla chitarra laced with Cimmarotta’s own olive oil and colatura di Alici (Italian fish sauce), and easily feeds two.
Cured ham aficionados will also find rare treasures here, from the acorn-fed Spanish Ibérico ham Cimmarotta slices from a rolling cart in the dining room to the multiple varieties of Italian culatello available with truffled sottocenere cheese. The lunch menu is slightly more affordable, when you can order that risotto minus the Wagyu for $39. You can also still taste the restaurant’s signature baby octopus, a pom-pom of grilled tentacles posed over spicy broccoli rabe. I’d also suggest the soulfully stewed beef braciole stuffed with pecorino. One dish that should not be missed is Dapi’s amazing gnocchi, ethereal dumpling clouds floated across a pool of a creamy Gorgonzola turned pastel green with blended pistachios.
Nutella gelato affogato at Il Riccio in Cape May, N.J.Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
For dessert, ignore the more ubiquitous options and head straight for the affogato. A silky Nutella gelato is topped tableside with dark and roasty Caffé Toraldo espresso from Naples poured from a gorgeous little red moka pot designed by Dolce & Gabbana. Like everything else at Il Riccio, it brings luxury, design, quality, and flavor all together into a special fine-dining experience that actually delivers exactly what you pay for.
Il Riccio, 311 Mansion St., Cape May, N.J. 08204, 609-554-3165; ilricciocapemay.com
Mediterrano
The demise of the Exit Zero Filling Station has left a kraken squid curry-sized hole in Cape May’s funky fusion dining scene. But its unique location — a soaring dining hall fronted by a former gas station pump turned breezy al fresco patio — has been salvaged and retransformed into a vision of Greece. Cue the potted palms, painted faux-cobblestones, and cerulean blue paint job for the old filling station portico that is now a BYOB called Mediterrano. New owner Florian Furxhiu has used his playbook from Santorini, the popular Greek haunt he owns in Wildwood.
Exterior view of Mediterrano in Cape May, N.J.Ted Nghiem / For The Inquirer
A statue of Hebe, the daughter of Zeus, presides over the columned fireplace of this handsomely renovated dining room lined with blooming fake bougainvillea vines, while Santorini’s former co-chef, Caesar Jeromino, and Alban Presheva, newly arrived from Albania, turn out one Greek standard after the next.
Considering their experience, my meal was more inconsistent than I’d hoped for. The Greek meatballs in tomato sauce were unyieldingly dense. The single-serving moussaka built à la minute over a solo eggplant lacked the satisfaction of the traditional large-format casserole.
The big lamb shank, however, was impressively tender, and the butterflied whole branzino, a favorite at Santorini, was as good as ever, its flaky white flesh glazed in lemony butter sauce and capers. I have little doubt Furxhiu’s time-tested team will level up to fine-tune the rest of these dishes as summer progresses. With Ionian-like breezes whistling off the nearby Atlantic through this unique patio and the goddess Hebe casting her magic powers, one can only hope.
The remarkable reinvention of Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino from infamous wiseguy to cheesesteak mogul has been well-documented by my colleague Michael Klein. But the arrival of his popular South Philly sandwich stand at a satellite on the Wildwood boardwalk still begs a clear-eyed review, especially with his partner Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri Jr. perpetually hyping the project on social media. It’s a great story, but does that mean it’s also a tasty lunch?
Cheessteak and pizza at Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino’s new Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks during a soft opening of his new location on the boardwalk in Wildwood.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
I admit an initial pause of disappointment that the best sandwich from OG Skinny Joey’s — the roast pork sandwich — did not make it to the beach. But the marquee cheesesteaks are consistent with the original, bountifully portioned and ever-cheesy with molten Cooper Sharp on a seeded roll. It’s overall better than I anticipated given the marketing bluster, but not quite elite (I worked through a clump of gristle amid the otherwise tender chopped meat; the coarse-cut, barely cooked onions also need more love).
The gloriously messy Buffalo chicken is the true steak star here. Skinny Joey’s also does pizza in Wildwood, unlike the original, and while the round pies are average, the strombolis are fantastic. They take extra time to make, because they’re baked to order. They’re also perfectly sized to fit into the slender holster of a cardboard cheesesteak box to go. Or, eat it on-site in Skinny Joey’s pleasantly cool indoor dining room, which has the rare boardwalk perk of a private bathroom, plus the opportunity to buy lots of branded merch.
You can get pierogi and all sorts of other Eastern European treats on the boardwalk at Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, famed for its Slavic community. A notable counterpart to be found at the Jersey Shore is the Pierogie Place, which has two separate stands on the Wildwood boardwalk. It has such a loyal following that a customer who sidled up to the register beside my family swore it was always her first stop when she arrived at the Jersey Shore (“we actually come daily”), not to mention when she visits Lincoln Financial Field, where Pierogie Place founders Liz and Bohdan Kulchyckyj also operate a location of their six-year-old comfort food tribute to Ukraine, where they lived for two decades as expats.
The Pierogie Place has two storefronts on the boardwalk in Wildwood. Pictured behind the counter at the 3116 Boardwalk location are employee Anastasiia Oleska (left) and co-owner Liz Kulchyckyj.Craig LaBan / Staff
The draw are the pierogi (or “vareniki,” as they’re called in Ukraine) offered in a variety of fillings and served with deeply caramelized onions and a dollop of sour cream. I enjoyed the potato and farmer’s cheese filling best, with the jalapeño-cheddar stuffing following close behind — even better crowned with a snappy link of kielbasa. The tortellini-like dumplings filled with pork and veal known as pelmeni are also irresistible. But don’t miss dessert of sweet cheese dumplings topped with strawberries, blueberries, or both and a cloud of whipped cream. Mingling with the aroma of salty sea air, this Slavic carnival in a box tastes particularly sweet.
The Pierogie Place, 3116 Boardwalk and 4302 Boardwalk, Wildwood; thepierogieplace.com
STONE HARBOR
Mother’s Market & Bakery
Mother’s Market & Bakery in Stone Harbor is a family affair, operated by Jennie Mopsik (center), her father, Eugene Mopsik (left) and mother, Helen Mopsik.Courtesy Mother's Market & Bakery / Eugene Mopsik
This charming new prepared foods shop in Stone Harbor checks a longtime bucket list wish for Jennie Mopsik to work alongside her parents in the Shore town where they’ve long summered together, and where she now lives year-round. This storefront market with patio seating was inspired by the home entertaining she saw her parents, Eugene and Helen Mopsik, refine over the years. So, while the shelves are stocked with well-chosen products, from top-notch pasta to Samaki smoked fish and frozen pierogi brought in from Port Richmond’s Czerw’s Polish Kielbasa, the real gems here are the specials cooked daily by her dad, a retired photographer who became known as the “Philly Loxsmith” in his tenure at Biederman’s, where he rediscovered a love of cooking. At Mother’s you’ll find him whipping up homey daily soups (cream of asparagus, gazpacho, matzo ball), fresh quiches, muffins, and excellent grab-and-go salads, including his legendary whitefish salad and a farmer’s cheese spread blended with labneh, shallots, and dill that’s my new favorite bagel schmear (not to mention Helen’s favorite happy hour snack). Jennie Mopsik is involved with the baking, too, but her talent and former business for flower arranging is also on display with custom hand-tied bouquets and orchid arrangements that she says will bloom all summer long.
Mother’s Market & Bakery, 8307 Third Ave., 1st Flr., Stone Harbor, N.J. 08247; on Instagram
Hanging candied bacon served over grits and Gully’s Blooming Potato at Gully’s in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
AVALON
Gully’s
When I was little, the notion of a human-size seagull flapping its wings at my table might have scared me right out of my swim trunks. But the team behind Gully’s is betting on the “sassy but good-natured” energy of its friendly weekend-only mascot, Gully, along with competitive Monday minnow races and updated American pub fare to bring some “old-school beachy vibes” to their makeover of the pergola-wrapped al fresco resto-bar in Avalon that was previously Black Cactus. And … it just might work?
Gully’s is more affordable than its predecessor and the diner-plus menu has a lower success bar to clear. But the food is also a notch better than it has to be, with fresh figs scattered over balsamic and a creamy hunk of burrata with prosciutto, a well-built chicken Caesar wrap, plump shrimp for the feta-dusted Mediterranean salad, and “skinny” crushes made with fresh juice and seltzer (not soda) to wash it down.
The Orange Crush and Super Spritz cocktails at Gully’s in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
A bland and creamy “peri peri” chicken entree was one disappointment for a sauce that should have been spicy. But stick with the menu’s less challenging top half and you should be fine, especially with a tray of spiralized “blooming potato” chips and a clothesline of candied bacon that dangles over a tasty plate of grits — not an original idea, but delicious. They’re so good, I was thinking Gully’s mascot should actually be a human-size piece of bacon just as our outdoor table was suddenly attacked by a relentless swarm of dune gnats. The service team stepped up when a cheerful manager appeared to offer guests some bug spray. (“BYO-bug spray next time?” he joked.) Of course, seagulls eat bugs, too, so Gully the mascot may, in fact, be just the hero we’ve been waiting for. Go Birds!
The exterior of Johnny Cutlets in Sea Isle City, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
SEA ISLE CITY
Johnny Cutlets
The old Steve’s Grilled Cheese is out. The crispy new swagger of Johnny Cutlets is in. And this smartly revamped Sea Isle City shop is already making a serious bid to join the elite ranks of the Jersey Shore’s sandwich derby. The cutlets are the main event, hand-breaded with two kinds of crumbs, Parmesan and herbes de Provence for a soft herbal note, then fried daily at a lower-than-usual temperature to try to maintain the juicy tenderness of a home-cooked cutlet. I was impressed, especially with its South Philly-style signature served with sharp provolone, broccoli rabe, and a long hot pepper draped over the top of a seeded Aversa’s roll. The Drunken Johnny with vodka sauce and the MJ with fresh mozz and balsamic are also popular cutlet options, but don’t sleep on Johnny’s steaks. They’re more manageably portioned than the overstuffed, overly cheesed steaks currently trending on social media, but I admired the balance of quality ingredients here.
Chef Shawn (no last name given), fries cutlets at Johnny Cutlets in Sea Isle City, NJ.Monica Herndon / Staff PhotographerThe MJ features a chicken cutlet with mozzarella, arugula, cherry tomatoes, hot honey, and balsamic glaze at Johnny Cutlets in Sea Isle City, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
This project is a collaboration between Steve’s former owners, twins Stephen and Fred Freda, and their new partner, “Johnny Cutlets” Markulics, who concluded that fried chicken and cheesesteaks have more “healthy living” appeal than grilled cheese. That’s probably not a scientific conclusion. But if early sales are an indication — selling up to 400 sandwiches a day — the theory wins a popularity contest. It’s just as likely that rebranding with Markulics front and center was also key. An AI-generated portrait of the vividly tattooed body shop owner, whose look Stephen Freda affectionately characterizes as “a friendly, semiscary face,” became the shop’s logo and sign, along with the bold catch phrase, “famous ‘cause I say so.” It’s a bravado this feisty little sandwich shop might actually live up to.
Johnny Cutlets, 27 John F. Kennedy Blvd., Sea Isle City, N.J. 08243, 609-486-6003; johnnycutletssic.com
Dylan Bear, owner of Alex’s Pizza, at 1214 Boardwalk, Ocean City, N.J.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
OCEAN CITY
Alex’s Pizza
A smash burger with onions and cheese is one of the specialties at the new boardwalk location in Ocean City for Alex’s Pizza from Roxborough.Craig LaBan / Staff
The best part of opening a Jersey Shore branch of a classic Philly pizzeria is that you have a built-in loyal clientele. The bad news is that loyal clientele. They know your pies better than anyone, and if it doesn’t measure up then … well, meet Michele B., a lifelong Roxborough resident seated beside me who grew up eating at Alex’s Pizza, a standby at Pechin and Leverington since the 1960s. She traveled to the Ocean City location specifically to taste a slice of her youth, and while these thin-crusted rounds looked the part, with a signature swirl of red sauce spiraled across the top, there wasn’t nearly enough of it: “It’s too dry!” said Michele bluntly. “Not enough sauce.” To his credit, the manager of this new boardwalk venture was eager for feedback, since he’d never eaten at the Roxborough original himself. An experimental pie with sauerkraut and hot dogs had more pizzazz, albeit a niche audience (me). But Alex’s does one thing especially well: smash burgers. The patties on my double stack were swiftly griddled to an impressively crisp and lacy skirt, then layered with onions and oozy cheese that trapped all of its juices. While Alex’s may indeed one day offer an upgrade to the multitude of boardwalk pizza mediocrity, the local burger competition is considerably more scarce. And this one’s worth the trip.
Alex’s Pizza, 1214 Boardwalk, Ocean City, N.J. 08226; 609-862-0062; alexspizzaocnj.com
Kyma
The Beach Baklava yogurt topped with chunks of the Greek pastry, chocolate sauce, and pistachios is one of the highlights at Kyma, a new Greek yogurt cafe in Ocean City.Craig LaBan / Staff
When it comes to island refreshments, Greece has a historic head start of a few thousand years on the Jersey Shore. So I was excited that the Siganos family behind Ocean City’s classic Greek diner, Yianni’s Cafe, opened a frozen treat destination nearby on Asbury Avenue with something different from the norm. Kyma serves Greek-style frozen yogurt that carries a refreshing tartness absent in most standard soft-serve, but its elaborately composed bowls are what caught my eye, especially the “Beach Baklava,” a swirling tower of frozen yogurt drizzled with chocolate, pistachios, berries, and flaky hunks of baklava pastry. There’s another bowl scattered with crunchy kataifi, almonds, and honey and another trendy Dubai-themed bowl drenched in green pistachio sauce and chocolate. There are some more familiar offerings — smoothies, açaí bowls — for maximum audience appeal. But the other prime bonus for me is the bold punch of one of the world’s original iced coffees: frappé, a Greek specialty invented in 1957 that whips instant Nescafé with sugar, water, and milk into a stiff peak that gets shaken with ice into a powerfully caffeinated foam.
Kyma, 838 B Asbury Ave., Ocean City, N.J. 08226, 609-545-2290; kymaoc.com
Island Grill
Crab imperial is one of the classic standards at Island Grill in Ocean City.Craig LaBan / Staff
The last time I visited Island Grill in 2021, the chowder and coconut shrimp were being delivered by Peanut the robot, on lease by the restaurant’s owners to cope with a severe pandemic labor shortage. Peanut is gone from Island Grill now, even if food service robots are now everywhere else. But this standby on the island’s northern end is once again humming full steam ahead for walk-in crowds that pack the nautical-themed space, now in its 30th year cooking fresh seafood from its retail market. The vast menu offers classics like fried or broiled fish platters from its extensive fresh catch board, fish tacos, and a broiled crab imperial glazed in zesty sauce that showcased the bounty of sweet meat. What’s also laudable about Island Grill is an extensive selection of gluten-free offerings that are carefully made to avoid cross contamination, from the pecan-crusted salmon to a gf key lime pie and twin crab cakes that were so good my celiac daughter questioned whether she’d received the wrong order. She had not. The kitchen also offers traditional crab cakes, but the gluten-free variety is convincingly bound with rice.
Island Grill, 100 Atlantic Ave., Ocean City, N.J. 08226, 609-391-9616; ocnjislandgrill.com
