A new Lebanese café is slated to open at 708 N. 2nd St. sometime this spring or summer. Members of the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association (NLNA) zoning committee tentatively approved the café at their Feb. 25 meeting.

The space

The owners already operate two cafes, including Café Cleopatra in University City, a hookah bar that also sells coffee, tea and smoothies. That location has existed for a few years.

The opening will bring a new business to a vacant storefront on North 2nd Street in Northern Liberties. Already located on this block are established places like 700 Club, Blind Pig, and Trophy Bikes. Across the street, you can find stalwart Liberties Restaurant, Chez Bow Wow, and a recently opened and rather successful Green Eggs location. The…

There’s a certain charm in being afforded the opportunity of walking a block or two to the local coffee shop for your morning coffee, bagel, or tasty pastry. In our urban environment, cafes represent a detached sphere. They remain the same and are moved neither by the rites of spring nor the hounds of winter.

In Fairmount, neighbors will be privy to this opportunity in the spring when the Fairmount Coffee Company opens at 26th and Poplar. We wrote about the potential of a shop opening at this corner location last summer. Members of the Fairmount Civic Association are interested in adding another quality neighborhood corner café to their streets, and supported the desired variance to make it happen. When the shop opens, hopefully on May 1st, Fairmount Coffee Company will stand as liaison between the community and the arts, all while serving La Colombe coffee,…

In the summer of 2011, a highly anticipated new Superfresh opened on the second floor of a large new building at the corner of 2nd & Girard. Just north of the Piazza, this new structure was not only supposed to give Northern Liberties its much-needed new supermarket, but also a collection of new and exciting retail options on 2nd Street and Girard Avenue. The results here have been mixed at best, with tenants like Family Dollar and TMobile bringing excitement to nobody, but one of the best state liquor stores providing the neighborhood with a significant upgrade over the previous incarnation a block away.

Looking south, retail in the distance

A year and a half after the market opened upstairs, a couple of the street level retail spaces have remained unoccupied. According to

When American Sardine Bar opened on the corner of 18th & Federal a little over a year ago, it was considered a big deal by new and old Point Breeze residents alike. This neighborhood has seen more than its share of hard times in the past few decades, but has experienced considerable residential development in the past few years, as developers have seen new opportunities and buyers as well as renters have been priced out of Graduate Hospital. In spite of the number of new homes and rehabs, relatively few new businesses have opened in the neighborhood, at least until the Sardine Bar opened its doors in the shuttered space of the Wander Inn.

Sardine Bar

At the corner of 21st & Federal, across the street from some odd-looking former affordable housing and a…

Two summers ago, Olive Restaurant opened its doors at 518 S. 3rd St., a space that housed Ava for some time. Earlier this year, the Mediterranean BYO closed its doors for good, and the property went on the market, originally for an asking price that approached $500K.

The building

You can’t argue with the property’s location, in the thick of the Society Hill neighborhood and just a half a block off of South Street. And with a large second floor kitchen, a dining area that hovered around 1,000 sqft, and a parking spot, we can understand why the building could have been attractive to a restauranteur seeking a space to call their own. On the other hand, with a dining room looking ripe for an episode of Restaurant Impossible, we can understand why potential buyers balked at the price.…

Almost a whole year ago, we updated you on the construction progress of a new construction home on the corner of 31st & Baltz, which at the time was across the street from a vacant lot that would supposedly someday become a supermarket. At the time, we also mentioned that a run-down mixed-use property with some lovely bones, located immediately to the south, had recently gone before the ZBA with a proposal to open a cafe.

In the past

Now, here we stand, a year later. The home on the northeast corner is finished. A giant orange pig sits on the roof of a newly opened Bottom Dollar. And iMunch, the cafe that we told you about way back when, looks like it should be opening sometime soon. Aside from the name and the tagline ‘Imbibe, Imagine, Inspire,’…