The second Night Market, in University City in June, was going great until cut short by a downpour. Destination Mount Airy was the third; a fourth will be in Chinatown on Oct. 6 and two more are to come in 2012.
"The idea was to bring communities together, one neighborhood at a time, to celebrate the specialties of that area and the synergy that happens around food," White says.
In White's eyes, it was more than successful.
"Ten years ago," she says, "street fairs were about music, or crafts; now it's about food, and that says a lot."
The Mount Airy Night Market drew the largest crowd yet, White said. News of a stock market plunge that day might have kept them inside clinging to their last dollars, but they came.
Maybe they were relieved to have a break from the stifling heat and humidity. That, or the promise of the terrific street food at their fingertips, like Nomad Pizza, crafted on-site in a wood-fired oven in the flatbed of a 1949 REO Speedwagon truck. Its crisp crust was spread, not smothered, with a tangy tomato sauce and topped with caramelized onion, fresh basil, and mozzarella, plus spicy sausage or thin-sliced pepperoni.
A few sorry souls tired of the lines at Nomad wandered up the block to the Golden Crust. But they'll have another chance soon enough when Nomad owner Stalin Bedon opens his first local bricks-and-mortar pizzeria at 611 S. Seventh St.
Danielle Jowdy, 29, a Connecticut native who came to Philadelphia for work as a stained-glass artist and stayed for love, was making her debut on Germantown Avenue with Zsa's Gourmet Ice Cream, which takes its moniker from a childhood nickname.
