Where to Live in the Philly Region If You Love to Shop ’til You Drop
The best Main Streets in the Greater Philly region are surrounded by great towns and neighborhoods, too.
Street fairs where pedestrians take over downtown are a common sight on many Philly-area Main Streets. Here: a street fair on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, one of our top Main Street shopping destinations. / Photograph by Elizabeth Ferguson for Visit Philadelphia
E-c0mmerce makes it easy to shop ’til you drop: Just point, click and buy.
There are some things you just can’t get online, however. A warm smile from the proprietor, for one. The chance to get lost in the merchandise and come out with something unique that you hadn’t expected to find. A chance to ask the salesperson about product features or the stories behind the merchandise. And, depending on the store, maybe even some coffee or cookies and milk.
And if shopping for specialty foods or beverages is your thing, you definitely can’t get samples from a website.
For those experiences, you must go to the store. And most of the stores that offer these things are small businesses that are extensions of their owners’ personalities. Those unique charms are why many skip Black Friday in favor of Small Business Saturday and shun the web to patronize the physical store.
You will find Main Streets and shopping centers (usually small ones) throughout the region where businesses like these abound. All of them are located in communities that are nice places to live as well as shop. This shopaholics’ neighborhood guide contains the best of the bunch.
Rittenhouse Place in downtown Ardmore / Photograph by Jeff Fusco
Ardmore
They don’t call Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore “The Main Street of the Main Line” for nothing. The Main Line’s biggest and busiest downtown boasts more than 250 independent retailers along the avenue and the streets that feed it. You’ll find everything from A (handmade skin and hair care products from Abiyah Naturals, 22 Ardmore Avenue) to Z (fine art from Zephirin | Gianetta Art Gallery, 38 West Lancaster Avenue) here. This is also home to our 2024 Best of Philly New Womenswear Boutique, Pilot/Powell (32 Parking Plaza). And if you have business to conduct with Lower Merion Township, this is also where you’ll find the municipal building.
On the other side of the tracks from Lancaster Avenue, Suburban Square, one of the oldest planned shopping centers in the country, offers more than 70 local and nationally known shops, restaurants and provisioners. It’s also home to the Ardmore Farmers Market.
Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill / Photograph by Stephanie Ramones, Contigo Photography, via Visit Philadelphia
Chestnut Hill
The American Planning Association named this neighborhood at the top of the city one of its 10 “Great Neighborhoods in America” in 2012. That same year, we gave its main drag, Germantown Avenue, a Best of Philly for “Best Main-Street Shopping.” It remains one of the region’s top Main Streets, with some 225 shops, service providers, eateries and drinkeries all giving you their best. One of the stores on “The Ave,” Serendipity (8506 Germantown Avenue), specializes in custom-made apparel and accessories that let you show your Philly (or Birds, or Sixers, or Phillies) love to the world. (This store also comes in a Doylestown-flavored version in that borough’s top-flight downtown.)
And if you want to shop Black, Chestnut Hill’s got your back with nearly 25 Black-owned businesses offering unique style, professional services and fine cuisine. Guys should check out Style by Blain (8433 Germantown Avenue), a one-of-a-kind shoe store run by “the best-dressed man in Chestnut Hill,” while women will find original fashion at Between Friends Boutique (7833 Germantown Avenue), lovers of African art can adorn their walls with works from Tasco Art Salon (8113 Germantown Avenue), and fans of science fiction and other speculative fiction can geek out at Multiverse (8026 Germantown Avenue).
Haddon Avenue in Collingswood / Photograph by Jeff Fusco
Collingswood
This South Jersey suburb went from being down-at-heels to all kinds of cool in a breathtakingly short time. Its main drag, Haddon Avenue, boasts unique local shops offering a panoply of items. If you’re shopping for your home rather than yourself, this is the place to go. You’ll find creative design and decor at Bespoke Home + Life (817 Haddon Avenue) and Everette Wilson Designs (686 Haddon Avenue), vintage furniture and artifacts at Clutter (697 Haddon Avenue) and decorative objects and art at Galerie Marie (709 Haddon Avenue).
Music lovers will enjoy rummaging through the vintage vinyl at Inner Groove Records (798 Haddon Avenue) and Grooveground Coffeebar (647 Haddon Avenue), where you will also find refashioned vintage clothing, arts and crafts, and coffee and light fare. Oh, and there are also fashion boutiques and eateries aplenty.
Historic State Street in downtown Doylestown / Photograph by CNMages/Alamy Stock Photo
Doylestown
Local residents saved Doylestown from being urban-renewed into blandness in the 1960s, and they and their descendants make the Bucks County seat a one-of-a-kind place to shop and dine today. (We bestowed the ”Best Main-Street Shopping” honor on it in 2011.) More than 60 local businesses offer apparel, athletic gear, books, plants, flowers, arts and crafts, fine art, home decor and much more.
You can outfit yourself with (mostly) American-made fashion, artisan jewelry and men’s essentials at Lilies of the Field (1 South Main Street), deck your walls with original artwork from Patricia Hutton Galleries in the Kolbe House at 47 West State Street, or spice up your cocktails and cooking (and care for your skin) with Bucks County-grown herbs and plants from Bluestem Botanicals (52 East State Street). A roughly equal number of restaurants and eateries make downtown Doylestown a great place to spend the entire day shopping — with a lunch break in the middle, of course.
A street festival celebrating a Revolutionary War skirmish on Kings Highway East in Haddonfield / Photograph by Sandy Smith
Haddonfield
“It’s just so freakin’ cute,” we said about our 2009 Best Main-Street Shopping winner. And Kings Highway East is still freakin’ cute today. Locally owned shops rule the roost here, accounting for the bulk of the more than 200 galleries, boutiques and shops you will find in this town.
One of the most original shops you will find here is 1692 Metaphysical Gifts (232 Kings Highway East, Suite 101), where you will find jewelry, crystals, botanicals and other witchy items. Savvy shoppers come here to find haute couture at bargain prices in consignment boutiques that include The Lavish Loft (105 Kings Highway East) and Raks Thrift Avenue (43 Kings Highway East). But if you want to wear something for the first time, you can get that also from stores like Nine North (107 Kings Highway East) and Moda Boutique Lounge (3 Kings Court).
The annual Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival brings throngs of shoppers and browsers to Walnut Street / Photograph courtesy of Visit Philadelphia
Rittenhouse Row
Center City’s classiest retailers cluster around Chestnut and Walnut streets from Broad to 20th streets. While many of them are nationally known chains, you can also find homegrown success stories like Lagos, the creative jewelry designer at 1735 Walnut Street, designer fashion icon Joan Shepp at 1811 Chestnut Street and high-end clothier Boyds’ flagship store at 1818 Chestnut Street.
Another homegrown success story with a large presence on Rittenhouse Row is URBN, the Philly-based retail behemoth whose chains include Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Free People. All three have stores on Walnut: Urban Outfitters at 1627, Free People at 1632 and Anthropologie at 1801.
Lancaster Avenue in Wayne / Photograph by R. Kennedy for Visit Philadelphia
Wayne
The heart of Radnor Township — the pinnacle of Delaware County communities — boasts a stellar collection of boutiques, service businesses and dining establishments. And most of them are packed into a compact district that extends from its Regional Rail station down Wayne Avenue to Lancaster Avenue, then runs along Lancaster in both directions. Looking for designer dresses direct from the designers? Try Gingy’s (111 North Wayne Avenue) and Louella (227 East Lancaster Avenue). And if you’re looking for Rittenhouse Row fashion and fare, Boyds (201 West Lancaster Avenue) and DiBruno Bros. (385 West Lancaster Avenue) bring it to you without having to hop the train into Center City.
