Marra’s Offers Old School Italian and Philly’s Oldest Pizza

Deep in the heart of South Philadelphia’s Passyunk Avenue, alongside the newer, trendier establishments, is Marra’s.  It’s an old school, Italian restaurant in the tradition of Ralph’s, Villa di Roma and Dante and Luigi’s.  Many visitors and celebrities from out of town have dined here through the years.

Perhaps its claim to fame is that Marra’s has been in business and serving pizza since 1927.  That’s before any current Philadelphia restaurant (including Tacconelli’s, which is older but did not start making pizza until the 1940s).  Continue reading →

Attention Sponsors and Elite Runners: Philadelphia Marathon Is a Great Race

This Sunday featured the running of the 2011 Philadelphia Marathon.  While this year’s edition was marked by tragedy of two deaths, it was, by and large, another successful race.  There were over 10,000 finishers in the marathon alone to go along with over 11,000 finishers in the half marathon and Rothman Institute 8K.

The race is a fantastic tour through the city.  Starting off on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, with many runners lining up by the Art Museum, you pass the Parkway museums, turn at Love Park, run by City Hall, go through Chinatown and by the Constitution Center, head south on Columbus Boulevard past Penn’s Landing including the Moshulu and U.S.S. Olympia, come back up South Philadelphia, head west on South Street and past Jim’s Steaks, go north back towards Old City, turn by the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, pass the throngs in Center City, take a trip through Penn and Drexel, go past the Philadelphia Zoo, climb up Fairmount Park near the Please Touch Museum, head back towards Center City on West River Drive, go back west on Kelly Drive by the river into Manayunk, and head back to finish on the Parkway.  That’s a pretty good sampling of the city.  It’s fast and relatively flat race, and, at least today, the weather definitely cooperated.

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Philadelphia Is a Spoiled Beer City

On Saturday morning, I went over to Sidecar Bar and Grille for its “Let’s Do Breakfast with Founders” event, which was run in conjunction with the Craft Beer Express.  With the bar opening at 10:30 a.m., one would reasonably believe that getting there at around 10 a.m. would be quite early enough.  Wrong.  By 9:15, over an hour before the event, there were already twenty people in line.  By 10 a.m., the line was seventy deep.  To wait in line to drink beer on a nice Saturday morning.

Of course, it wasn’t just any regular beer.  Founders, a relatively small brewery based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is one of the most well-respected breweries in the world.  It only brews about 30,000 barrels yearly, but its entire lienup is highly regarded in the beer drinking community.   Fortunately, Pennsylvania is one of the sixteen states to which it distributes.  And while Founders has a nice selection of beers available year round, it also has special, limited release beers that draw beer enthusiasts like opening day sales of new versions of iPhones. 

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