Foobooz - Your guide to food and drink in Philadelphia

  • Neighborhoods

     

  • Features






  •  

  • Tip Jar

    Have a food or drink tip? tips@foobooz.com (AIM:foobooz)

  • Opening Soon

  • Upcoming Events

  • Categories

  • Archives

  • Masthead

    Editor
    Jason Sheehan
    Founder
    Arthur Etchells
    Advertising
    danielle@phillymag.com

  • Fun Things To Do in Philly

  • Subscribe

«
»

Raw Out At Piazza

Posted by Victor Fiorillo on January 3rd, 2012

It seems like just months ago that I was telling you about Sansom Street sushi joint Raw getting an outpost at Bart Blastein’s mixed-use 80,000-square foot revolving door aka The Piazza at Schmidts, replacing Shola Olunloyo’s ill-fated Speck project. Oh wait. That’s because it was just months ago. Well, after what I hear was one helluva New Years’ Eve party at the complex (even my Enterprise car rental guy in Upper Darby said so), word comes that Raw is no longer open for business.

What’s happening with the space is unclear. The hostess at the Sansom Street restaurant said Monday that she thinks the Piazza restaurant is only open for takeout, but the person who answered the phone “Uh, hello?” at the Raw Piazza number said there’s no takeout, no nothing. He said that it may just be closed for the winter, which is, of course, usually restaurantspeak for something else entirely.

One well-placed Northern Liberties source says that Raw may be no more but that its replacement is expected to be something of the “reconcepted Asian” variety. Landlord Bart Blatstein did not immediately return a call for comment.


    Related Tags: , , ,

    Related Posts

    This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 10:21 am and is filed under News. 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.

    • barryg

      Circles is moving to NoLibs…

    • LMW

      This guy Victor Fiorillo is a joke. He has been putting out some of the most ill-conceived and poorly written “journalism” I’ve ever come across. Who gave this clown a job?

    • Victor Fiorillo

      Ah, it’s so nice to be back on Foobooz. Hate on, haters.

    • Marlin

      Raw website says this location is “Closed for the Winter season. Reopening March 2012.”

    • Marlin

      my bad, it says “Spring Season” not March…

    • Eric

      Raw is done for good at the Piazza. It is not reopening.

    • barryg

      What restaurant has ever closed “temporarily” and then reopened?

    • Tex

      “It seems like just months ago that I was telling you about Sansom Street sushi joint Raw getting an outpost at Bart Blastein’s [sic] . . . .”

      How about a Jewish deli concept called “Blatsteins”? Or a kosher concept called “Glatt-steins”?

    • hamburglar

      Or better yet Tex, how about a place called Fuctsteins? It’s a just a huge open space with a bottomless black pit in the center where customers and investors can just go and dump their money in the pit, never recieving anything in return.

      But, it will be the most hyped black pit in the city….

    • diParma

      What a shame, not even the great PYT can save the Piazza…

    • Michael G

      If restaurants can’t make a go at the Piazza then what will work there? The only thing that will work there presently would be a huge nightclub which wouldn’t be a good thing for $2000 a month one bedroom apartments. You can’t create a retail district by just building it. Retail requires lots of foot traffic and lots of nearby residents with disposable income. NoLibs has grown but it appears not to the extent to support this much square footage. I’m not sure of the reason for the failure maybe it’s too much retail or maybe it’s a poor design.

    • barryg

      The whole concept of a “piazza” there is ridiculous. Real piazzas have foot traffic because they are in central locations and act as a crossroads. This piazza lead from 2nd and Girard to a highway underpass–not generating much natural foot traffics–and feels like a slow, boring walk through a deserted college quad for the pedestrians that do end up there.

    • barryg

      (cue all the urban planning students who will explain how the Piazza is such a great design, unlike the horrible Liberties Walk, even thought the latter has sustainable retail).

    • D

      I heard they were reopening but who pays rent on a space for months just to open again unless its like a pizza place or a Ritas….. No one wants to pay this price for sushi in this area. They were fine with their center city location. The only time we went here was when it was 50% off for Tower Residents.

    • Blatsteinbergerwitz

      Did I just read “great” and “PYT” in the same sentence?

    • Blatsteinbergerwitz

      —-cue all the urban planning students who will explain how the Piazza is such a great design, unlike the horrible Liberties Walk, even thought the latter has sustainable retail—-

      What makes Liberties Walk sustainable but not the Piazza? I’ll give the Piazza the faintest of praise only because Liberties Walk has not a butt ugly design but is the cheapest looking modest to large scale project in Philadelphia during the previous building boom. Yes even crummier than the Symphony House. I’m sorry that sloppy stucco and 10 dollar vinyl windows impress you.

    • barryg

      @Blatsteinbergerwitz the occupancy and turnover speaks for itself.

    «
    »