Icepack Illustrated: Starr, Hart & Cube, Weiner and Agnew
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
News, rumors, opening, closings, etc.
In the first Icepack-in-Print of this new year, I dropped the exclusive on Stephen Starr’s next Philly mega-location with Talula’s Garden’s Aimee Olexy, the block it would be on (Frankford Ave., next to Record Exchange, good for them!), that its cuisine was casual, and that it would have an outdoor component. While that un-named restaubar collaboration builds out for late spring opening, Starr’s next move is back in Manhattan, and his long-awaited El Vez NYC Mexican restaurant. Double the size of his Philly Midtown Village El Vez in width and height, the financial district/Battery Park City hot spot will hold 200+ people and should be ready to cook in March of this year. Along with its menu similar to the Philly Vez, NYC Vez will supposedly play host to a separate specialty stand selling to-go soft taco/ burrito/etc fare, just perfect for the on-the-run neighborhood family types and area bankers.
The dates for the much loved and very annual Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival and its pre-party got announced this morning — May 3 and April 24 — so mark your un-sociable calendars. And speaking of the Rit Row, congrats to Joan Shepp and her tony clothing salon for landing a new spot after being pushed out of 16th and Walnut, rummaging through several real estate options, and hopping aboard the pop-up shop option at Liberty Place. Congratulate her next weekend, Jan. 15, at her annual bargain basement sale.
People from Philly are hitting all sorts of media. I subscribe to two magazines, and two magazines alone — New York, and New Yorker — so to avoid the locals. So imagine my surprise when author Jennifer Weiner showed up in the New Yorker touring her quest for respectability.
Philadelphia thespian Evan Jonigkeit and Zosia Mamet’s boy toy, according to MTV, has taken on the role of “Toad” (yes, I thought that character was gone too, but this is an origin tale) in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past.
And seriously, what the hell was R5’s Sean Agnew doing on CNN, after having witnessed a Dennis Rodman-led basketball game live in North Korea? Don’t come back home without an international incident and a great North Korean indie band, Agnew.
Nigel Bennett, one-time guitarist for UK punk godfathers The Vibrators, mixed-and-mingled with students from Temple to produce a video for his harsh psychedelic take on the ye olde classic “Scarborough Fair,” taken from his debut solo album, Truth or Consequences. Five students filmed Nigel in Regents Park in Central London while attending Temple London’s Study Away Program (hey, I did that program for a year back when Londoners were still wearing powdered wigs and using quills). Good show, chaps.
WHOWHATWHERE: It ain’t Jihad Jane but hey, we are waiting STILL to see what sentence Philly Mob Wives: New Blood participant Alicia DiMichele Garofalo, got from the Brooklyn Federal Court for embezzling funds from Big R Trucking, the firm she formerly co-owned with her husband “Tall Guy” Garofalo Jr., who got seven years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering. The New York Post reported that DiMichele faces $96,000 in fines, a restitution payment of $20,000 and six months in prison. While all this was going on between the holidays, her Philly Mob co-star and funeral parlor doyenne Natalie Guercio hung with Kyber Bernsytein, Damon Feldman and Ryan Banks at Lit Ultrabar, as well as making time to hang with her pal Alicia. During Ladies Night at the Wells Fargo Center’s Nitro Circus event, sports hero Travis Pastrana took time out from doing very X-treme things to hang out with the Fargo’s staff backstage. In anticipation of their co-starring film roles in Grudge Match, no, I mean Ride Along (not to be confused with Ride Along 2, which is already a thing!) Philly’s Kevin Hart and actor/rapper Ice Cube gave away cheesesteaks from the behind the counter at Jim’s Steaks on South Street before romping along the block, mugging for cameras and kids with iPads. Philly’s favorite rabbi, Rabbi Shemtov, leader of the Lubavitch Of Bucks County, partied with his son, Shnuer Shemtov during the younger’s Bar mitzvah at the Crystal Tea Room. Before announcing that he would quit the Allman Bros before the end of 2014, Warren Haynes executed the blues during the first of his Gov’t Mule sold out shows at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby. Olympic weightlifting champ Mark Henry — now a member of the WWE, stopped by MIX 106.1 and more than likely bench pressed the staff.
