A Day in the Life of Mawn’s Phila and Rachel Lorn

Phila and Rachel Lorn at the 2025 James Beard Awards ceremony in Chicago / Photograph by Getty Images Jeff Schear / Stringer

To say Phila and Rachel Lorn are busy these days is an understatement. Between running their acclaimed restaurant Mawn, winning major awards — last month, Phila scooped up the James Beard award for best emerging chef — getting ready to open their new Southeast Asian oyster bar, Sao, and raising their son, the Lorns are constantly on the go.

I asked the South Philly power couple to share what a typical day looks like for them and spent a few hours following them around on a busy Friday to see firsthand how they get everything done. Here’s a glimpse into their daily routine.

6:50 a.m.: A typical morning for the Lorns usually starts a little before 7 a.m., or on a good day, as late as 8:15 a.m. — whenever their three-year-old son, Otis, wakes up. One of them will make Otis breakfast, then there’s a family snuggle session until around 9:15 a.m., while they watch his favorite shows. Phila and Rachel usually skip breakfast, but coffee is a must. Rachel has hers with oat milk, while Phila sticks to black. They’ll make a cup at home in their Nespresso machine — “Anything [George] Clooney does, I want to fucking do,” Phila says — or get coffee at Rival Bros. after dropping Otis off at the babysitter’s.

10:58 a.m.: Phila and Rachel meet me at Sao on East Passyunk Avenue. The oyster bar is weeks away from opening, and the space is almost complete with a few tables and chairs set up, including a boardwalk-bench-style banquette and a gorgeous avocado-quartzite bar with an oyster display case at one end and a neon oyster decal fixed to the wall at the other.

Today’s a big day — the floating shelves behind the bar are going up — and when we get to Sao, general contractors Greg Privitera and Jon Mork are already there with work equipment. The Lorns’ business partner (and Rachel’s cousin), Jesse Levinson, who’ll run Sao’s bar program, arrives a little later, followed by chef Rob Cammann, who’ll be Phila’s right-hand man in the kitchen. When Privitera and Mork put up the largest shelf, Phila, Levinson, and Cammann jump onto the counter behind the bar to help the contractors fix it in place. Rachel records the moment on her phone, then dims the lights to see how the bar will look during service. Against a wall covered in glossy, cream tile, they make the bar area look even sleeker.

The neon oyster sign hanging up in Sao / Photograph by Rachel Lorn

Then, the Lorns run through what still needs doing, including swapping out the barstools — they’re expecting new ones soon after the brown leather seats they picked up turned out to be too wide — and filling in a small crack in the bar countertop. Like any successful business owner, the Lorns take any minor hiccups in stride and come up with solutions on the fly.

11:59 a.m.: We leave Sao and drive to the Italian Market. Phila takes a detour to show me his route from home, driving through his South Philly neighborhood, then Little Cambodia, near where he grew up, pointing out his childhood house. As we near our destination, we get stuck behind a garbage truck for what feels like an eternity, but soon enough Phila finds parking near our lunch spot, Phở Skyline.

12:30 p.m.: At Phở Skyline, Phila orders his usual — the Pho Deluxe — with egg rolls on the side, and Rachel gets the tofu vermicelli. Over lunch, Rachel takes a quick call to discuss some changes to the menu for Sao, and they share more about the progress they’re making. They’re in the process of hiring and say they’ve heard from a number of people in the restaurant industry who want to work with them.

1:08 p.m.: We pop in to Gleaner’s Cafe, where Phila picks up a yerba mate, and a barista behind the counter congratulates him. A customer sitting nearby, possibly a tourist, asks why she’s congratulating him, and the barista tells him that Phila won a Michelin star before correcting herself to say she meant a James Beard award. “The Michelin is next, though,” she says with a smile.

The friendly barista isn’t the only person to commend Phila on his win, and as we walk through the Italian Market, I feel like I’m in the company of South Philly royalty, with passersby shouting hi. On the drive earlier, the chef tells me winning the James Beard didn’t quite sink in until he went to a local shop to have his medal framed; when they told him they were happy to have the honor, it dawned on him this was a big deal.

Phila Lorn accepting a James Beard Award / Photograph courtesy of Getty Images for James Beard Foundation

1:14 p.m.: Then, we’re at Cappuccio’s, picking up sausages for Mawn’s family meal; sometimes, Phila will order food from other neighborhood businesses like Angelo’s, but today he is cooking for the team. Phila and the butcher catch up while he prepares the chef’s order of mixed Italian sausage. While this isn’t for diners, the Lorns pride themselves on sourcing their ingredients for Mawn as locally as possible — in many cases, that means just down the road.

1:22 p.m.: It’s time to get to work at Mawn. We enter through the back, and as you’d expect during lunch service, the dining room is bustling and the kitchen is cranking out orders.

Rachel gives me a quick tour behind the scenes, showing me around the kitchen, including the dishwashing area, prep station, and walk-in (where everything is labeled and organized meticulously), and the office. In the front-of-house, she points out the noodle bar where many dishes are assembled and the point-of-service station, where she draws my attention to a handwritten list of names on a clipboard — all the people who waited in line for a table today, whose names a member of staff takes down as they map out lunch seatings. People started lining up at 9:50 a.m. today — over an hour before opening. By now most names are crossed out.

Mawn’s waiting list for lunch / Photograph by Chloé Pantazi-Wolber

While Phila checks in with some of his team and Rachel multitasks from the front-of-house to the kitchen, I watch chefs Dan Via — soon-to-be Mawn’s head chef when Sao opens — and Josh Stair as they fry up a whole fish, sauté the components of the popular all-star seafood rice with a soft shell crab add-on, and whip up desserts like the funnel cake and jasmine rice pudding in an instant. I’m lucky enough to get a taste of the latter, as Via slides a bowl of rice pudding in my direction. It’s unbelievably light, with a slightly nutty, delicate floral flavor. I make a mental note to not skip dessert next time I eat here.

2:15 p.m.: The last orders are being taken in the dining room as lunch service winds down. The stream of savory dishes coming out of the kitchen begins to taper off, and there are more desserts now.

2:45 p.m.: The dining room is mostly clear, and in 15 minutes or so, they’ll begin the process of closing before dinner. Wanting to make myself a tiny bit useful, I wash my hands, grab a napkin, and help one of the servers polish cutlery. As we chat, the server tells me they’ve been working at Mawn for a couple of years — a good amount of time in the restaurant industry — and plenty of others on staff have been here for a while. The restaurant has a friendly, comfortable vibe, and I can see why people want to work with the Lorns.

Mawn’s all-star seafood fried rice with a soft shell crab add-on / Photograph by Chloé Pantazi-Wolber

3 p.m.: In the kitchen, new coal goes into the grill for dinner service. At the stove, Phila starts getting the staff meal ready. He decases the sausages, then breaks up the meat by hand into smaller pieces, throwing the chunks into a hot pan, then adds brothy chickpeas and cavatelli to make a spicy sausage pasta.

3:09 p.m.: The last guest remains seated in the dining room, about to pay their check. At an empty table, Rachel has her laptop open to review the night’s dinner bookings on OpenTable. She shows me an overview of the reservations and looks for any special occasions to be aware of — for birthdays, for example, they’ll add a candle to dessert. The night before, there was a marriage proposal in the dining room.

3:30 p.m.: As delicious as the staff meal looks, I head out a little before so the team can take a break before dinner service. Typically, everyone sits down at around 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. “The whole staff stops what they’re doing, on a good day,” Phila says. “We all sit down and eat and talk shit.”

Rachel Lorn reviewing Mawn’s dinner reservations / Photograph by Chloé Pantazi-Wolber

4:15 p.m.: Phila and Rachel hold a pre-shift meeting. They thank the team for their work so far, quickly debrief lunch service, then talk about the upcoming dinner: any VIPs who’ll be coming in, things to note from OpenTable, and food specials. “We’re usually scrambling to finish talking,” Rachel says, adding that if the meeting runs long, it’ll wrap just before the door opens.

4:30 p.m.: The first song on Mawn’s playlist — always, the same old Cambodian rock song, “Yuvajon Kouge Jet (Broken-Hearted Man)” by Yol Aularong — starts to play. It’s a cue to everyone that it’s go time. Guests are welcomed, and by 5 p.m., the whole dining room is set for the first of three seatings. Compared to lunch, when the team tries their best to seat as many people who waited in line as possible, dinner feels “totally calm,” Phila says.

9:30 p.m.: After the last seating at 9 p.m., final orders go in by around 9:30 p.m., though the kitchen will still take dessert orders after that time; depending on party size, diners have between an hour and a half and two hours at their table.

Phila and Rachel Lorn during Mawn’s dinner service / Photograph by Chloé Pantazi-Wolber

11:30 p.m.: By this time, most, if not all, of the guests have left.

12:09 a.m.: Phila and Rachel leave around this time, but on Fridays and Saturdays, it could be later. “There’s a BYO tradition, if you will,” Phila says, adding that guests sometimes bring some beer or wine for the kitchen staff.

After getting home, they chat a little with their babysitter (now over at the Lorns’ place, where Otis is asleep) before she leaves. Phila says they “owe a lot” to their babysitter, who is there “from A to Z.” Then, the Lorns eat while watching TV — usually Late Night With Seth Meyers.

1:30 a.m.: It’s lights out. That is, until Otis wakes up.