Shopping local is a way to keep more of your dollars in your own community. Our 2015 local holiday shopping guide, “Buy Local for the Holidays,” is here. Check out this page for information on holiday specials and events and for some great local gift ideas from a variety of West Philly businesses – bookstores, jewelers, gift shops, art galleries, bars, cafes and restaurants, and more!

This Week’s Holiday Specials include:

• Monday, Nov. 30: Cyber Monday? How about “Cider Monday” at Penn Book Center, 130 S. 34th Street. Enjoy hot cider and holiday treats as you spend a cozy Monday shopping locally. 25% off sale on select Random House titles kicks off today! The store is open until 6 p.m. Mon-Fri.

• Thursday, Dec. 3 – Saturday, Dec. 5: Holiday Kick-Off at Hello World, 3610 Sansom Street – Featuring jewelry designed by West Philly jeweler Amy Neukrug. Thursday and Friday: 5-9 p.m.; Saturday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

• Friday, Dec. 4: Opening reception for the University City Arts League Annual Holiday Craft Show, 6-8 p.m., 4226 Spruce Street. The show features hand-crafted one-of-a-kind gifts by 30 local artists.

• Saturday, Dec. 5: The Baltimore-Lancaster Avenue Shoppers’ Trolley (BLAST), 12-5 p.m. Featuring: great gifts and discounts galore from dozens of local businesses and free trolley shuttle service between Baltimore Avenue and Lancaster Avenue. The event is organized by the Baltimore Avenue Business Association (BABA) and People’s Emergency Center Community Development Corporation (PEC-CDC).

For more information about these and other local holiday events and specials, visit: www.westphillylocal.com/buy-local-for-the-holidays-2015

Renata’s Kitchen co-owner Kate Aiq at the grand opening on Wednesday.

UPDATE (11/16/2015): Starting Monday, Nov. 16, Renata’s Kitchen will be serving dinner every night from 4 – 10 p.m. Renata’s owners are also sending a reminder that their restaurant is a BYOB!

9/24/2015: Renata’s Kitchen (formerly Café Renata) opened its doors to the public at their new location at 4533 Baltimore Avenue last night. A sizable crowd turned up to celebrate the grand re-opening of the restaurant that suffered a devastating fire at their former location near 43rd and Locust last spring.

Starting this Friday, the restaurant, which serves Mediterranean and American-style breakfast, lunch and brunch, will be open daily: Mon-Fri 7 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Sat & Sun 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Renata’s co-owner Kate Aiq said that they’re also planning to introduce a dinner menu in a couple of months after they settle in at the new location. Also, the restaurant is currently hiring, mostly line cooks. Resumes are accepted at: jobs.caferenata@gmail.com  Continue Reading

Archived photo (Selah Lynch/West Philly Local)

We have some news from the 5000 block of Baltimore Avenue. After a year of operation, Gush Gallery has closed its doors. Local artists Stephanie Slate and Sarah Thielke opened the interactive art gallery in August 2014 after months of fundraising through Indiegogo, but in the end it turned out to be very difficult to keep the business sustainable at that location.

Their former space at 5015 Baltimore Ave will not stay empty for long though: Snapdragon Flowers (Facebook page), a flower shop run by Cedar Park-based florists, is slated for October 2015 opening. Once open the shop will offer fresh and preserved floral arrangements, as well as gifts and cards with a botanical theme. There will be a couple of chances to learn more about Snapdragon Flowers and meet the owners at the upcoming Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll and Go West! Craft Fest at The Woodlands.  Continue Reading

Photo from The Nesting House’s Facebook page.

The Nesting House, a local boutique that offers a mix of gently used kids clothes and items (ages newborn to 8), as well as new parenting items, baby registry and toys, will be opening a location soon at 4501 Baltimore Ave.

The first Nesting House store opened its doors five years ago in  Mt. Airy and there was a need to accommodate its growing customer base. West Philly has been in the running since the first expansion of the store (a second location opened in Collingswood, NJ two years ago after a spirited vote online as to where the next location should be), and the owners didn’t need another vote to make their decision.

“With Clark Park, Penn Alexander School, Milk and Honey, and Mariposa co-op nearby, the area boasts one of the ingredients for the store’s success – a neighborhood that creates a one stop shopping experience for busy families looking to support local businesses,” owners Jen and Chris Kinka said.  Continue Reading

The local non-profit Media Mobilizing Project, which uses media to organize poor and working people to tell their stories, has recently moved to a new location from their old location at the church on 43rd and Chestnut Streets. Their new office is at 4534 Baltimore Avenue; the space is owned and until recently was occupied by O’Donnell Real Estate. Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania has also moved to this location from 43rd and Chestnut.

As was reported earlier, the former Christ Memorial Reformed Episcopal Church building on the corner of 43rd and Chestnut is undergoing renovation, including extensive roof repairs.

By the way, O’Donnell Real Estate, a locally-owned company specializing in West Philly property sales and rentals, no longer acts as agents for sellers and buyers, according to their website, but they buy homes, apartment buildings and vacant land.

The numbers are in for “parklets,” those little curbside, pop-up platforms with tables and chairs found outside a few local businesses, and it turns out that people, and businesses, seem to like them.

The University City District studied parklet use in 2013 – observing and counting who used them and how – and released a report this week detailing what they found. The study included six parklets outside the Green Line Cafe on Baltimore Avenue, Honest Tom’s/Lil’ Pop Shop, Fu-Wah Market, Manakeesh Cafe, Little Baby’s Ice Cream in Cedar Park and Ramen Bar at 4040 Locust.

To get the data, the UCD parked an intern at each spot during the operating hours of the host businesses on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the spring and summer of 2013.

It shows that most of the people who use the parklets are patrons of the “host” businesses (you don’t have to be, but most were). In terms of daily unique users, the Honest Tom’s/Lil’ Pop Shop parklet (which both offer very portable products) saw the most traffic (just over 140 per day) with the Green Line spot second at about 60 visitors. The parklet outside of Manakeesh, which sits curbside along a busy section of Walnut Street got only a few visitors per day.

Use at the Honest Tom’s/Lil’ Pop Shop location spiked at about 2 p.m. and then again at about 6:30 p.m. Green Line’s parklet was busiest at about 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. and Little Baby’s parklet saw most of its daily use between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. The others spiked during lunch and dinner times.  Continue Reading