SAVVY MAINLINE

it's what you want to know

Parents, kids & coaches unload on Conestoga and T/E officials at football hazing public forum

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Hey, Adults: you failed the kids in your care.

That was the bitter takeaway from an impassioned public meeting on hazing at Conestoga High School Monday night.

The school district called the pow-wow, seeking input on ways to handle the football hazing scandal that’s roiled top-rated Stoga since the Chester County DA announced juvenile assault charges against three senior players and a separate school district investigation uncovered hazing that goes back years.

What school officials got instead was an earful: an ardent defense of ousted head coach John Vogan and his staff and a lot of lip about how adults – from the DA to the district – had let kids down.

Devon Yard Downsized (!), SAVVY Spring Break Style Guide, Speaking up re: Stoga hazing, Gateway’s unlikely new BYOB

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Developer Eli Kahn’s 60-foot high hopes have been officially and forever dashed.

After huddling with disgruntled Devon neighbors, he’s just unveiled a new plan that lops off the top floor of his proposed Devon Yard apartments and cuts the number of units from 135 to 100.

Was it the blue yard signs that sprouted like spring weeds along adjoining streets after that very vocal public meeting?

Wayne home invasion & sampling new local eats: First Watch, Snap Kitchen & Potbelly

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First, some seriously scary stuff.

A guy wearing a creepy Halloween mask appeared at the foot of a woman’s bed in her Strafford home (100 block of Crestline Ave.) around 1 a.m. last Saturday, bound her with duct tape, then ransacked the place, taking her car keys, jewelry, radio and ATM card. After the invader threatens her with what looks like a stun gun, the woman gives him her ATM pin code. Creep hops in her car and hits up the Devon Square Wells Fargo ATM machine, where this nightmare-clown photo was snapped.

Now clean, sober & thriving, Conestoga ’10 grad Reilly McCloskey calls out area parents (ouch), Stoga hazing update & sunnier stuff

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Reilly McCloskey is clear-eyed. At last.

An addict through his teens, Reilly, 23, is clean and sober, his vision fixed and in focus, the grayscale blur of his Conestoga days turned radiant.

And like Dorothy in Oz, Reilly is relishing every last pixel, capturing them with his Canon D in all their Technicolor glory.

Indeed, the first show of his photography (“Interaction of Color” at Bryn Mawr’s New Leaf Club through March) is an explosion of hue and light.

A celebration of seeing. For the first time.

New whisky pub in Wayne, a Gateway center surprise, the CYO guy you WANT coaching your kids & more

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Wayne is getting its first whisky bar and pub. The Goat’s Beard, a hit since it opened in Manayunk a few years back, will open in the old Xilantro space on N. Wayne Ave. in May.

Owners are Wayne guy, Sean Coyle (whose family owned the old Binni & Flynn’s in Gateway), and biz partner Michael MacCrory.

Expect the same locally sourced pub menu, small-batch craft cocktails and no fuss vibe. Xilantro went dark last week.

Bold, hip & rockin’, new Bulldog Yoga romps into Villanova (will yoga ever be the same?), plus a new Zavino, Besito blasted, shoutouts & fond farewells

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Take every notion you’ve ever had about yoga, then flip it – like your best downward-facing dog.

What do you get? Bulldog yoga.

Debuting its flagship this Friday, Feb. 19 in stunning space in the new Villanova Center, bulldog aims for Top Dog status. If it hits the bull’s eye, it will become nothing short of the SoulCycle/FlyWheel of yoga.

A breed apart AND a breed above.

Main Line welcomes Maya.J (yum); dueling over Devon Yard; hazing alleged at Stoga & much more

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A new H-O-T spot for your restaurant radar: Maya.J.

After cooking his way ’round the world, Main Line native Craig Wilson has brought his sizzling sauté pans home.

Lucky us.

Open since Feb. 3, locals are flocking to Wilson’s Maya.J in Manayunk. (The ‘Yunk being where the Main Line schleps when we’ve had enough Estia chips already).

Smashing debut for Cotoletta BYOB, a new Nudy’s, our first First Watch (yum!), Haverford School star’s tragic death & more

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The eastern Main Line is pouring into the 100-seat BYOB in the former Mel’s Italian in Belmont Hills. (Even Mel himself showed last weekend to toast a pal’s 70th!)

The draws: rustic Italian fare and allegiance to owner Beth Amadio, the Penn Valley mom whose last culinary caper, Homemade in Narberth, closed in 2014.

“People really love Beth and missed her excellent food at Homemade,” says Nicole Dresnin Schaeffer, one of many FOBs dining at Cotoletta last Saturday night.

Can Strafford’s old Covered Wagon Inn REALLY be saved? Plus, a new use (at last) for Bryn Mawr’s FoodSource & aftermath of an Academy Ball gone bust

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You drive by it all the time, barely taking note: a charming, undoubtedly very old shop on a bustling, modernized stretch of Rte. 30 in Strafford.

Next time, do a double take.

For this is The Little Building That Could – all 1,200 sq. feet of it.

The Little Building that could stop a big-time developer in its tracks.

That could force a multibillion-dollar corporation back to the drawing board.

That could be the engine that pushes a certain Main Line township to add muscle to its wimpy historic preservation laws.

Delays & dustups over Devon Yard: The REAL reason we’re still waiting for Waterloo Gardens’ demolition

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For years now, we’ve been panting to be let loose in Devon Yard. (Terrain!  Anthropologie! A Terrain Garden Cafe! Pizzeria Vetri! Amis!)

So what’s the hold up?

Postponing our grazing pleasure is the project’s residential side – specifically, a proposed five-story mixed-use building that’s giving some folks fits. (Too tall! Too dense! Too out of character!)