Get Excited: Federal Donuts and Goldie Launch Center City Flagships

Goldie and Federal Donuts open side by side in Center City. Photo courtesy CookNSolo

Happy Monday, everyone, and welcome to the Foobooz Weekly News Round Up. I’ve just got a few quick things for you this morning — most of which have to do with donuts, oddly — so let’s kick things off with an update from the most notable pushers of donuts in Philly, the kings and queens of the fried dough scene, CookNSolo.

Photo by Lorin Mortellite

FedNuts and Goldie Have an Announcement to Make …

Here’s some big news for all of you donut, fried chicken and milkshake aficionados out there.

Both Federal Donuts and Goldie — two of the most impressively focused properties in the CookNSolo stable — now have shiny new flagship locations ready to brighten your day and wreck your diet. They’re side-by-side on Sansom Street, on the ground floor of The Harper, and by the time you read this, both of them will be up and running.

Goldie got the lights turned on first, opening last Thursday at 1911 Sansom. FedNuts follows today at 1909. Both spots are MUCH larger than their predecessors, clocking in around 1500 square feet each. Goldie can seat 22 at the counter and will continue the tradition of offering falafel, fries and tehina milkshakes that are so good you’ll never look at a normal milkshake the same way again. FedNuts has 26 counter seats, schoolhouse desks and dining tables on the floor, and a roll-up garage door in front in anticipation of warmer weather, eating fried chicken in the sun and Center City people-watching. Both spots are right around the corner from another CookNSolo operation, K’Far. Oh, and the best thing about the new FedNuts? It’s got a window into the kitchen so you can watch the donut robot work.

Yes, I said donut robot. I’m a sucker for food robots. I find them endlessly fascinating.

Goldie is open 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Federal Donuts is open 7 a.m. – 6 p.m. Both are doing daily service and both are up and running right now, so go get some fried chicken, donuts and a milkshake. You’re awesome. You deserve it.

Moving on…

Photo courtesy Punch Media

Let’s Do Brunch (and Also Dinner)

So we all know about The Dutch’s plans to close up shop at 4th and Cross and move to the former home of Lee Styer’s Fond, right? I’ve talked about it quite a bit in this column, and we’ve been kinda counting down the days until the changeover.

Well, it is now official. The Dutch is open at 1537 South 11th Street in the East Passyunk neighborhood, in Fond’s old location, and they’re back to doing all the stuff that The Dutch was known for — banana pancakes, scallion waffles with creamed chipped beef (which are SO good), ring bologna eggs benny and enormous Dutch babies, both savory and sweet.

But wait, there’s more.

It looks like The Dutch — always just a spot for breakfast and lunch — is now adding on a dinner service as well. Not YET, but soon. Right now, the hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. But starting on March 16th, Styer and his chef, Kevin Watters, will be extending the hours to 9 p.m. (with a break between services on the weekends) and adding a full dinner service and cocktail program.

Styer is even bringing back a little bit of Fond’s vibe with some French-inflected dishes to balance out the offerings. So there’ll be chicken liver mousse, salad Lyonnaise, roasted mushroom soup and Fond’s pork belly over olive oil potatoes with chimichurri to go along with the cheesesteak tater tots, double cheeseburgers, fish and chips and Dutch-style fried chicken and waffles with dippy eggs.

There’s even a spread of The Dutch’s breakfast stuff on the dinner menu (which I kinda love), so if you’re after a night-time Dutch baby or some fruited pancakes, this will definitely be your jam.

The new dinner service will start on Wednesday, March 16th. Start making your plans now.

 

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The Leftovers

Here’s some more donut news: Cicala is doing a zeppole pop-up shop on Saturday, March 19th, to celebrate both St. Joseph’s Day and Angela Cicala’s nomination as a semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef.

It’s an order-in-advance kind of deal (which you can do right here), with a pick-up at Cicala (699 North Broad Street) between 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. You can get yours filled with cannoli cream, Nutella ricotta, vanilla pastry cream or lemon pastry cream.

Northern Liberties Restaurant Week is scheduled to run from Friday, April 1st, to Sunday, April 10th. They’ve got more than 20 of the best restaurants in the neighborhood doing $10-$15 lunches and dinners at either $25 or $35. You can check out the list of restaurants (and make your reservations) right here.

Also, we’ve got two new openings in NoLibs, both on North 2nd Street: The Shake (a New Orleans-style seafood joint) and Pera (Turkish food that looks amazing). I don’t have a lot of details yet, but if you want to make yourself hungry, check out Pera’s Instagram. Seriously.

Pera appears to be in soft-open right now. The Shake is still getting ready. But I’ll have more details on both soon.

Finally this week, Kraftwork in Fishtown has a new chef and a new menu that just rolled out.

The new blood on the line is David Green, a 20-year industry veteran. And his new board has a little bit of everything — from grilled pear salad and braised short rib to cheesesteak egg rolls, crab fries, birria tacos and Side Project Jerky jerk chicken wings done in collaboration with local jerky entrepreneur (jerkpreneur?) Marcos Espinosa. There’ll be half-price burgers on Mondays, $1 tacos on Tuesdays, tap takeovers at the bar and an unlimited ravioli deal — which is something I don’t think I’ve seen before.

Kraftwork is open nightly, and does brunch on the weekends. So stop in and check out the new guy if you’re in the neighborhood.