Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples, who hails from Upper Darby, did not grow up on a farm. Although her grandparents operated a Christmas tree farm near Clarks Summit, Lackawanna County, Staples’ initial hands-on contact with farming was growing lima beans in her backyard for an elementary school assignment. After graduating from Temple University with
More
In 2018 the Triangle Roasters workshop was minimally furnished. It had a sleek black coffee roaster, two cacao grinders, a couple of tables and a handful of green stools ready to be pulled up for an impromptu coffee cupping. Fast forward to 2021, and the space is almost unrecognizable. On a warm spring day the
More
Sometime in the mid-1970s, Amira Abdul-Wakeel baked her first cake in her West Oak Lane childhood home. Her sister and a very close girlfriend all pitched in, and they beamed with pride at their pound cake. Then her mom came home, and exclaimed, “That’s the best corn bread I’ve ever had.” Slighted, but not defeated,
More
In 2020 sisters Rhonda Saltzman and Mercedes Brooks turned their lockdown restlessness into a blossoming business with their online store, Second Daughter Baking Co. After years of experience in restaurants, bakeries and the hospitality industry, Culinary Institute of America graduate Saltzman had an excellent résumé. But at the beginning of the pandemic she lost her job
More
In March 2020 customer sign-ups at Philly Foodworks grew 50 times in just one week. Last year, overall, customer orders and customer sign-ups tripled when compared to 2019. “People were placing $600 fish orders,” Dylan Baird, Philly Foodworks co-founder and CEO, says. Baird credits some of this growth in his online business, which home delivers
More
Matthew Rafferty started off in the restaurant industry as a dishwasher. Now—25 years later—he stands behind the window of his own establishment. It is a Sunday and Algorithm’s cobalt blue food truck is parked on the south side of the 1900 block of Washington Avenue. The truck offers an extensive vegan menu using ingredients sourced
More
According to Ashley Roberts, eating out as a vegan in Philadelphia is easy. Why? Because so many restaurants offer vegan options. “I feel like you can go into pretty much any restaurant and they can accommodate you in some way,” says Roberts. She describes the contrast between Philadelphia restaurants and the venues she frequents when
More
As professionals in the hospitality industry, caring for others is important to longtime friends Stephen Pressman and Heather Gettis. When the pandemic hit and both were laid off from their jobs, restaurant worker Pressman and event manager Gettis found themselves with an abundance of time and a lack of opportunity to do things for others.
More
Whether due to seasonal shutdowns or permanent closures, the city has no shortage of depressingly dim restaurants and bars lately. So it was refreshing to see a welcoming splash of color on the door of one such establishment. While the Valanni Social Club, at 1229 Spruce Street, has been in stasis for months due to
More
In October 2020, Grid released an introduction to community fridges, a mutual aid concept where a refrigerator is placed in a public space and stocked by organizers and the community at large for the benefit of those in need. The food is free to all. At that time, there were only 11 fridges citywide, but
More
The winter slump had set in for ice cream sales in late January, and Kianu Walker, the force behind Vannah Banana, was dreaming of the summer—picturing himself not on a beach, as many people do, but instead in an ice cream truck. After starting the city’s first Black-owned, vegan ice cream business in 2020, Walker
More