SAVVY MAINLINE

it's what you want to know

Double issue: Movie (!), dining & shopping scoops, plus our annual all-local ‘nifty gifts’ guide

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Pop some corn: seems the western Main Line is going to the movies.

One of the nation’s largest movie chains is THISCLOSE to inking a deal with Uptown Worthington, the long-time-coming lifestyle center near the Malvern Wegmans.

The center’s owner, developer Brian O’Neill, tells SAVVY that a dine-in theater with full bar plans to take 43,000 sq. ft. and should open in a year or so. Two prior deals with movie chains cratered a few years back, but we’re told this one should be a wrap by early January.

O’Neill also tells us he’s nearing a deal with Main Line restaurateur Marty Grims. The White Dog Café/Autograph Brasserie/Moshulu owner wants to open a “super hip” spot at Worthington

Read More See More

Ex-Stoga aide admits student sexual assaults; New Bryn Mawr BYOB; Fresh ‘Canvas’ for downsizing boomers; Teegarden dogs; Our Closet; Mister Sprinkle & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Guilty as charged. A former teacher’s aide has admitted to the repeated sexual assault of a Conestoga sophomore – in his school office, his car and her bedroom – during the 2016-2017 school year.

After pleading not guilty at his April arraignment, Arthur Phillips changed his plea to guilty last Tuesday and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison.

If Phillips had been younger, Chester County Judge Patrick Carmody said he wouldn’t have accepted the plea deal. “You’re 67, Do you understand that you may never leave jail, that this might be a life sentence?” he asked the defendant.

Phillips said quietly that he understood.

The judge was clearly disgusted by Phillips’ crimes.

Read More See More

Democrats win big in T/E & beyond; Longtime Main Line ob-gyn arrested; Stoga, Devon Yard, Ardmore Target & Aronimink updates; Dine local; Shop w/ purpose & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Local Democrats are still pinching themselves – perhaps nowhere more so than in Tredyffrin, where the party’s candidates went 12 for 12 last Tuesday.

A sweep.

Three Democrats ran for township supervisor seats: incumbent Murph Wysocki plus Matt Holt and Kevin O’Nell. ­

All three won.

Four Democrats ran for T/E school board: incumbent Scott Dorsey plus Kyle Boyer, Tina Whitlow and Heather Ward.

All four won. (Whitlow and Ward ousted current board president Doug Carlson and Virginia Lastner.)

So, for the first time in township history, three of seven supes and seven of nine school board directors will be Democrats.

Read More See More

KOP Mall shooting; Shopping & school news; A celebrity house call; ‘What to Eat Now!’ takeaways and more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Just in time for Halloween: scary times at the King of Prussia Mall.

Last Saturday afternoon, a woman returning to her car in the garage between Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor was held up at gunpoint. Police say an armed man hopped in her backseat as she opened her car and pointed a gun at her head, demanding her purse.

He then sped off in the SUV he had allegedly just hijacked from an 87-year-old man in Delaware.

So, yeah, an armed robbery at 3:30 p.m. on a weekend afternoon at one of the busiest malls in the country.

But wait; it gets worse.

Read More See More

Tredyffrin man’s shocking death; Revolting charges in Radnor; Lights Out at People’s Light; Remembering domestic violence victim Ellen Robb & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

“We’re looking at it from all angles.”

That’s all Philadelphia police will say about their investigation into the stunning death of high-profile Tredyffrin resident Philip Reitnour, whose body was pulled from the Schuylkill last week.

Perhaps best known as the local guy who went on Shark Tank, Reitnour, 58, had reportedly been shot once in the forehead. His corpse was found floating under the Walnut Street Bridge Thursday morning.

Read More See More

Heroin with a happy ending; MOMS Demand (gun) Action; Crowded schools; Bistro boomlet & weekend preview

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

What a difference a decade makes.

Hang out with the Tankels’ in their Malvern living room and you’d never know this observant Quaker family was nearly destroyed by drugs.

Teasing and cracking jokes, they clearly love being together. Like the “normal” Main Line family they weren’t – for six harrowing years.

Truly, if walls could talk, the Tankels’ home would scream: of stolen money and pilfered pills, of school expulsions and shouting matches, of multiple car crashes and surprise drug tests, of Visine and baggies, of trust faithfully extended and repeatedly betrayed. All of it fallout from Eric Tankel’s addiction to pot, to pain pills, and ultimately, to heroin.

Six of his close friends died from their addictions.

But Eric, thankfully, is very much with us.

Read More See More

Devon Yard beckons brides & mitzvahs; Saving sex-trafficked girls; Flamingos trending; Shopping scoops; A SAVVY Save the Date & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

The dirt is flying and the bulldozers are busy at the old Waterloo Gardens, now a bustling construction site for Devon Yard.

Good thing, too.

Because URBN is already booking weddings and mitzvahs – from Sept. 1, 2018 onward – at the Yard’s splashy event venue, Terrain Gardens.

Never mind that the project took more than four years to get OK’d; URBN’s confident it can have the whole shebang up and running in less than 12 months.

Read More See More

Social Edition: Radnor Hunt Concours, Hava NaGrilla, Kendall’s Crusade, Help Us Adopt & LBBC previews, Help Hope Live, Baker Industries & other summer shindigs

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

More than 3,000 collectors and car buffs oohed and aahed at a stunning parade of vintage vehicles assembled at the Malvern show grounds Sept. 10. Zipping along in its 21st year, the Radnor Hunt Concours is now internationally recognized as one of the world’s premier automotive shows.

Read More See More

Summer ’17 Catch-up: Life Time KOP’s sinkhole; remembering Radnor’s N. Mora; Skinny Pizza (?!); Nova’s new Inn; Crime news; Fall Classic; Mt. Joy & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

/>By all accounts, things were going swimmingly at the area’s fanciest new fitness “resort,” Life Time Athletic in KOP.

Until they weren’t.

On Saturday, Aug. 5, staff noticed the water level in the indoor pool had suddenly dropped a few feet and the decking in one corner had collapsed.

Uh-oh.

The club promptly closed the pool, drained the water and demolished it.

The culprit? A sinkhole – although management’s e-mails to members never used the “s” word, referring only to the pool’s “inadvertent” closure and “required repairs.”

Not the sort of splash Life Time envisioned when opened for its first summer season in June.

Read More See More

Movie theatre to Tredyffrin (?!); Devon pot dispensary’s surprising CEO; New frat suit; True Food Kitchen & new Wayne BYOB; Pun’s to Ardmore; Devon Yard & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Dim the lights and pass the popcorn: The Main Line might get its first luxury movie house.

The owner of the Swedesford Plaza Shopping Center in Tredyffrin is in serious talks with an upscale theater company to turn the dowdy old Pathmark into a state-of-the-art cinema experience.

Read More See More