Plus: A new owner for an old space, saying goodbye to a South Street sports bar, and a brand-new breakfast spot in Point Breeze.
The kare pan at dancerobot will stay on its overhauled menu. / Photograph by Jesse Ito
Howdy, buckaroos! And welcome back to the weekly food news round-up. I know it’s been a little while, but we’re back at it again — covering all the food news that matters in Philly and beyond. This week, we’ll kick things off with everything you need to know to sound smart, including (but not limited to) bad news from the world of sports bars, a menu change (and Halloween party) at dancerobot, sushi at Wawa, a big anniversary for a very small restaurant, and a surprising new occupant at one of Stephen Starr’s old addresses. So let’s get right into it, shall we? We’ll start things off this week with …
Brisket Bao and Halloween Karaoke at Dancerobot
Justin Bacharach and Jesse Ito’s yoshoku-leaning Rittenhouse restaurant, dancerobot, has always been a difficult thing to describe. It’s a Japanese restaurant that doesn’t do sushi; that serves Jewish-inflected, American-influenced Japanese pop-culture iterations of classic bar and diner foods and omelets for dinner. It came out of the gate attempting to do a million things at once (dinner, happy hour, late-night, karaoke, jazz parties, custom cocktails and brunch), and seemed to alter its menu in ways both big and small every time you looked away. While everyone seemed to expect it to be a kind of clone of Ito’s wildly successful Royal Sushi & Izakaya when it opened, that was the one thing it staunchly refused to be.
Now, though, just after celebrating its first anniversary, the partners have redone the menus to make the place feel more like a cohesive whole. The dinner menu is now arranged the same way it is on the izakaya side at Royal: divvied up by category, organized by small plates, raw dishes, things that are grilled or broiled, a section entirely made up of dumplings and bao, and another for the “Yoshoku Classics” that have always been the backbone of dancerobot’s board. The idea is that this will make it easier to assemble a meal, to fill a table with share plates or order waves of snacks — some chili shrimp gyoza and shumai, followed by brisket bao with BBQ sauce and Kewpie mayo, grilled yellowtail collar with a yakiniku glaze, then kanpachi with pickled Thai chilis, a kare pan or the kitchen’s re-worked “Teriyaki Hambagu” (with a dry-aged brisket patty, local mushrooms, teriyaki gravy, and a side of rice).
Kare pan and a sake juice box / Photograph by Aaron Richter
The more experimental dishes that Bacharach and Ito are constantly tinkering with? Those will become a rotating list of specials. And they’ve rounded out the brunch and happy hour menus, too — giving permanent status to favorites like the hot dog bun with roasted jalapeño sauce, spicy salmon onigiri with kimchi, and sourdough pancakes with miso maple syrup.
The new menus are all up and running now. You can check ‘em out right here if you’re curious. Personally, I’ve loved watching this place evolve over the past year, and I like this change for them. It gives dancerobot an identity that’s less vaporous than it has been in the past, and customers a more logical path through the menu.
Oh, and for those of you who are interested, the crew is also throwing a Halloween karaoke party on October 31st. It starts at 11 p.m. and runs until last call. Drag queen Lady Geisha will be hosting, and there’ll be Jell-O shots, spooky ice cream flavors, lots of singing, and tons of food and drink specials running throughout the night. Keep an eye on dancerobot’s Instagram page for more details.
Now what else has been happening while I’ve been gone?
Oh, Right. Speaking of Japanese Things …
Sushi and a chirashi bowl from Sagami in Collingswood. / Photograph by Kae Lani Palmisano
Over in University City, the former home of Stephen Starr’s Pod is getting some new life.
Sagami, the venerable South Jersey sushi restaurant that was operated for more than 50 years by Shigeru and Chizuko Fukuyoshi before being taken over last year by new owner (and longtime customer) Alan Su, will be opening a second location in the space.
This is unusual for a couple of different reasons. First, you don’t often see restaurants expand after a half-century run. Granted, Su is new to both the ownership and legacy of Sagami, but the place is so singular and so tied to its place on the other side of the bridge in Collingswood that thinking about it on Sansom Street is a little strange.
Second, Pod is just so … Pod. Starr’s slick and curvy vision of a science fiction future where we all sit in dining pods and eat lasers is also singular and also absolutely defined by the place and time of its peak popularity. I mean, the sherbet-colored lighting, the seating, the conveyor belt sushi? Of all the weird-ass, only-in-Philly places I can think of, Pod is definitely one of the weird-assiest.
What’s more, the place closed and reopened like a half-dozen different times over the years. It was Pod for 20 years, then it was nothing after the pandemic closed it down, then it came back as KPod as a partnership between Starr and Kevin Serpico, then it dropped the K and became just plain old Pod again for a while — a too-serious version of its former self that went so far in its nostalgia that it even re-assembled some of the old staff — before finally closing (again) last year after nearly a quarter-century, this time for good.
And now Su plans on taking over the place, with all its ghosts of alternate futures and glossy Pan-Asian food fantasies, and turn it into a very traditional, very classic Japanese restaurant that’s meant to carry the vibes of Sagami into UCity?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m excited to see what he can do with the place. And I’ll totally be there whenever he opens. (No date has even been floated yet, as far as I can tell.) It just feels strange to me.
One very good thing, though? According to the Inky, Su isn’t planning on turning the place into another high-priced omakase spot. He wants to keep it accessible and approachable — good for the neighbors, students, families, and everyone else — with lunch service, specials, and some noodle and izakaya offerings to go along with the action happening at the now-conveyor-belt-free sushi bar. And that’s a good thing because this city has a lot of omakase options right now. Maybe too many. And the opening of another one, even with the Sagami name attached, would’ve just felt like noise to me. But this? This could be something very different, so I’m hoping for the best. Like they say, fifth time’s a charm, right?
Anyway, I’m going to be keeping an eye on it. You’ll know more when I know more.
Meanwhile, over on South Street …
Marsha’s Closes Its Doors
Chivonn Anderson, owner of Marsha’s / Photograph by Harry Smith
Back in July of last year, I told y’all about Chivonn Anderson, formerly of Redcrest Kitchen, who had just picked up a space on South Street and was in the process of turning it into Philly’s “first-ever queer women’s sports bar and venue.” Her plan was to call the place Marsha’s, after transgender rights activist Marsha P. Johnson, and she was hoping to get the place open before the end of the summer.
And she almost did. It actually took until September of 2025 for Marsha’s to debut, and its first year was not without its share of controversy. There was the police raid in February stemming from an alleged 311 complaint about licensing which brought more than a dozen masked officers to the bar at 11:30 p.m. on a Friday night. Then, a couple months later, complaints from a former employee about employment disputes turned into an ugly (and very public) back-and-forth on social media. And now, just over a year after opening, Marsha’s has closed.
Anderson took to Instagram to make the announcement late last week, saying, in part, “It is with a heavy heart that we have decided to close Marsha’s doors for good. We have loved serving this community, and still believe that more than ever this city needs more women/queer/BIPOC-owned businesses. We sincerely hope that someone is able to step up and fill this void.”
Opening a bar or restaurant is always hard. Running one is even harder. Doing so for a marginalized community, under intense public scrutiny, in this day and age when everyone has an opinion about everything and loves nothing more than shouting it from whatever rooftop is closest or most convenient? That adds a whole other layer of complication. So Marsha’s had a brief, tumultuous run that ended too soon. Its final service was this past Sunday and, as of now, there are no future plans for the space.
Now who has room for some leftovers?
The Leftovers
Sushi in the grab-and-go case at Wawa / Photograph by Jason Sheehan
I know there’s been lots of Japanese restaurant news already this week, but just to round things out, there’s this: Wawa is serving sushi now.
Not all Wawas. Just a couple of them out in the ‘burbs. It’s an experiment being run by the company to see how people react to the idea of eating grab-and-go sushi from a gas station. And because I am both foolhardy and a big fan of cheap sushi purchased from unusual locations, I decided to go check it out for myself. If you’re curious how it went, you can read all about my experiences right here.
Good news for the early-risers in Point Breeze. In a surprise move, Breezy’s Deli announced that it was going to be opening for breakfast hours starting … well, today. In an Instagram post, the deli and market said that customers had been asking for morning service for so long that it was finally time to come through for the neighbors. New hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday, with “all stations serving from open to close.” Which is great, because that means you can now score a breakfast sandwich from sister restaurant Porco’s whenever you need one. To celebrate the new hours, Breezy’s is offering self-serve coffee at 50-percent-off all next week from 9 to 10 a.m., which seems like as good an excuse as any to get up and moving in the morning.
New food offerings at Xfinity Mobile Arena / Photograph courtesy of Aramark
Meanwhile, ahead of the start of the regular season for the 76ers, Aramark announced that it was rolling out a bunch of new menu items at Xfinity Mobile Arena, and now all of a sudden LeBron James isn’t the only guy there with a couple decades of history behind him. Among the concessions this season are two different pizzas offerings from Marc Vetri and short rib tacos from Jose Garces. There are also new fermented house pretzels, chicken gyros, and a short rib corn dog with pickled red onions that’ll no doubt make you a very popular fellow in a close-packed crowd. And if you’re fancy enough for the suites or club levels, you can now get steak frites with white truffle fries, a brined turkey sandwich with Calabrian chili aioli on a pretzel baguette, or plates of beignets with French caramel.
Me? I’ll do the same thing I do every year: warm up leftover slices of pizza in the microwave at home, forget when the game starts and end up watching Tombstone on HBO instead.
If you’re already planning ahead for the upcoming holidays, Little Walter’s is running weekly golonka dinners every Saturday night. It’s a huge feast, meant for small groups (a maximum of six guests), seated at the chef’s table next to the open kitchen, and features a massive roasted pork shank served over bigos and potatoes, house-made rye with dill butter and smalec, three kinds of pierogi, kielbasa, chicken cutlets, golabki, seasonal salads and small plates, six cans of Polish lager, and a full bottle of Polish vodka with mixers and house-made bitters.
Little Walter’s / Photograph by Gab Bonghi
The trick here is that the golonka dinner is only served on Saturdays, and only at 5:30 and 8 p.m. — meaning there’s only space for 12 people a week. So if celebrating the holidays by getting messy on vodka shots and eating yourself into a pork coma with five of your closest friends sounds like a good time to you, you should probably think about making your reservations now. The full spread will run you $500, all-in, and you can make your reservations here.
And finally this week, over at Little Fish chef Alex Yoon is celebrating his tenth year at the helm of his tiny, 16-seat Queen Village BYO by doing four different collab dinners (one each week) throughout the month of November. Each one will be a chance for Yoon to “collaborate [with] and celebrate the individuals who have helped me along the way,” so he’ll be doing a dinner with longtime sous Brad Stanek on November 2nd, and another on the 9th with Stevie Laney (who has been in the kitchen since 2016) picking out all her favorite plates from over the years. On November 15th, it’ll be Steve Eckerd, who was Yoon’s mentor at Le Bec-Fin back in the day, and who later worked with him at Little Fish. And then, on the 16th, the restaurant will be doing a huge surf-and-turf dinner.
The menus for all of these dinners look ridiculously good — particularly Eckerd’s tribute to Le Bec, and the heavily Asian-influenced surf-and-turf. Details (and full menus) can be found here on Little Fish’s Instagram page if you’re down. And once you see what Yoon has planned for these anniversary dinners, I think you will be.