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The Text That Came In The Night: The End Of Fork & Barrel?

Posted by Victor Fiorillo on April 19th, 2011

Yawn. Why can’t you people let us sleep? Received the following text at 12:09 a.m. this morning from a well-placed source:

Sorry for the late text… Fork and Barrel, Tap and Table, and the Bookstore officially folded a few hours ago. Farmer’s Cabinet to remain open.

If true, I can only imagine that the not-exactly-ideal commute from Center City (Farmer’s Cabinet) to East Falls (F&B) to Emmaus (Tap and Table) to Bethlehem (The Bookstore) — the same people are behind all four spots — has something to do with it. If untrue, some late texter has a lot of explaining to do.

In any event, I can only hope that the people I emailed about this already today are still asleep. Unlike some of us.

Developing…

UPDATE: The rumors are (mostly) true. Go here to read a statement from one of the owners.


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    This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 at 7:46 am and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

    • Tex

      Wow, I’m really impressed by how connected you are. Thanks for turning news of the closing of a popular Philadelphia establishment into a story about you. How pathetic.

    • http://www.mellodybrewing.com Sean

      If this is true, the only reason I can think of would be their growth was too much too fast. Coming to Philly so quickly after opening Fork and Barrell probably did them in.

    • lyfords

      @Sean: That was my first thought as well. I haven’t been to the other locations enough to know whether or not they were doing good business. Part of me wonders if it is their pricing, which is a bit steep, but then again they offer high quality, and imports, neither of which is cheap. I feel I get my money’s worth at Farmer’s Cabinet, I’m just spoiled by Philly’s generally very-reasonable draft prices.

    • Mark

      Really? An esoteric beer bar failed in an out of a way neighborhood where a successful sports bar had been priced out? I blame the landlord for both of these businesses closing.

    • lyfords

      How can a landlord close more than one business MILES apart? One is in East Falls, another out in Emmaus?

    • Mark

      Oh, ALL the other locations. Must drink coffee before reading the Foobooz.

    • Julie

      I was in F&B a few weeks ago and the staff alluded to this happening. When I asked how they thought Farmer’s Cabinet might impact their business, they said that it seemed like they were just going to let F&B die and put all their resources into the Cabinet. Interesting business strategy.

    • http://noplcb.blogspot.com Lew Bryson

      Hey, Mark…maybe you should just drink coffee before making snarky comments? Like maybe Tex shoulda had a grande (or a Wawa 20 oz.).

    • barryg

      It is an interesting business strategy, they must have very friendly financiers.

    • Bronwen

      wahhh!!! i won’t pretend to know anything at all about this business, but must state the obvious. why in the name of the spaghetti monster do gross, boring, something-i-could-get-from-the-frozen-aisle + coors light holes stay open and great spots close?

    • eldondre

      my one visit to farmer’s cabinet it was packed even with the sky high prices. more perplexing than a strategy to keep a center city destination restaurant over an east falls destination restaurant is why they went to east falls first. still, given that three of them closed, you have to wonder if there wasn’t simply a debt problem related to their expansion rather than how the businesses were actually performing. perhaps they were smart with farmer’s cabinet and set it up as a separate partnership and didn’t do the same for the other restaurants…which would mean one flop could bring down the other two.

    • Andi

      I lived in East Falls for about 2 1/2 yrs now and I’ve been hoping for more to come around in terms of bars, restaurants, etc, while still enjoying what was currently around. I’ve seen The Pour House close now Fork & Barrel(now apparently closing), Buckets change ownership a few times and now Falls taproom, Johnny Mananas is now under new management and same goes for Franco’s, which the owner moved up to city ave. Stop screwing this area or no one is going to want to live here or visit here. Probably not the right place for this vent but EF has sooo much potential!

    • Veronica

      Where do you all go out to eat to find such affordable prices to complain about prices? If you ever go out to eat anywhere you’d know that they are average city prices.
      Sorry suburbanites, go to tgif if you want frozen cheap disgusting shit.

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