Olive Garden

Cherry Hill's newest culinary hot spot, the Olive Garden, has taken off like a rocket: Open only a month, the place has long lines of patrons waiting for tables. No wonder. The chain restaurant, which replaced the Rusty Scupper on Route 38, offers huge portions of excellent, modestly priced food in a pleasant setting with the friendliest service imaginable. The place also may be the beneficiary of a phenomenon peculiar to Cherry Hill in which almost any new restaurant is mobbed its first few weeks as customers rush to be among the first to visit.

If you're having trouble deciding between an Italian restaurant or one that features seafood, you'll soon be able to make your choice as late as when you pull into the parking lot. That's because two chain-owned eateries, Red Lobster and the Olive Garden, will share a common parking area when they open at the site of the former Seafood Shanty at 2311 E. Lincoln Highway. Darden Restaurants, of Orlando, Fla., plans to open its new Red Lobster on March 18, while the Olive Garden is set to debut on April 1. The Red Lobster chain, founded in 1968 by the late Bill Darden and bought in 1970 by General Mills, now has more than 700 restaurants in the United States and Canada.

THINK YOUR boss is bad? Well he, or she, has nothing on Matt Shaner, owner of the AFL's Pittsburgh Power. On Saturday, Shaner got the team together for a pregame meal at an Olive Garden near Orlando. And then he fired everybody. Now let's be clear: Shaner had reason to drop the ax. The players were being asked by their union to strike before that night's season-opener against the Orlando Predators. The players association wanted the owners to give the players - most of whom are paid $400 a game - a $300 per game raise.

Could a concept as enlightened as seasonal, healthful cooking possibly exist at the Cherry Hill Mall? Yes, I know we're talking about the hallowed ground where the first climate-controlled indoor mall east of the Mississippi was born nearly half a century ago. I know we're talking about a town so thoroughly infested with big-box commercialism that any hopeful sprout of independently owned-restaurant spirit is often squashed by the cheesecake weight...

THE TONE of Sono Motoyama's critique of Plate (June 6) was, at best, condescending. While I live and work in Center City, I have driven out to Ardmore to dine at Plate on multiple occasions. I have done so - and will continue to do it - because Plate is a great restaurant. The food, service and decor are extremely pleasing. To compare Plate to a chain like the Olive Garden is simply outrageous. I don't know if Ms. Motoyama has an ax to grind, but if she can't make it from Philadelphia to Ardmore without getting lost, she should turn in her driver's license.

There's been a lot of talk these days about smokers being discriminated against in public places. In restaurants they are relegated to prescribed areas. This is unfair, they say, and probably unconstitutional. Is it? That's too bad. I have more sympathy for the other patrons who are breathing in the poison. It makes little difference if the two areas in a restaurant cater to so many smokers, especially when they find that the non-smoking customers are dropping off. In two words: fear, stupidity.

Funeral services will be held Thursday for Susan Denise Rodgers, 21, a senior at Rowan University who died Sunday in a Moorestown automobile accident. A Delran resident for the last 18 years, she was a 1996 graduate of Delran High School, where she had been on the cheerleading squad. Ms. Rodgers was an honors student and an accounting major at Rowan in Glassboro and a member of the American Accounting Society. She belonged to the First United Methodist Church of Moorestown, where she was active in the Youth Fellowship, the choir and the handbell choir.

About 250 art students were evacuated from a 17-story Center City building and two restaurants on the ground floor were temporarily closed after dangerous levels of carbon monoxide set off alarms before dawn yesterday. Investigators had not determined the source of the odorless but deadly gas in the historic building on the southeast corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets by late yesterday afternoon, said Capt. Richard Davison, a Fire Department spokesman. Jared Rosado and his roommate, Nick Ryan, had slept through the alarm when they were awakened by firefighters who had entered their 17th-floor unit.

There is much to like about The Bread, My Sweet, a film about biscotti, brothers, and Italian Americans in Pittsburgh. Yet while Melissa Martin's film starring Scott Baio as a corporate raider who moonlights as a master baker has all the ingredients of Moonstruck, for its first hour it is like watching dough in an oven someone forgot to turn on. Baio (who is excellent) plays Dom, the provident son who proposes marriage to Lucca (Philadelphia's own Kristin Minter), the prodigal daughter of the neighborhood.

Bona Cucina Ristorante is one of those humble little neighborhood eateries that comes with that classic disclaimer usually reserved for fine-dining establishments. Somewhere on the menu you'll find a line about being patient because the food is cooked to order. At Bona Cucina - which means "good kitchen" in Italian - the food is as simple and familiar as a plate of grandma's lasagna. Still, the "patient" statement should be emblazoned on the walls. Yes, everything is custom-made here, including the pasta and homemade soups, but there's also only one chef in the kitchen.

THINK YOUR boss is bad? Well he, or she, has nothing on Matt Shaner, owner of the AFL's Pittsburgh Power. On Saturday, Shaner got the team together for a pregame meal at an Olive Garden near Orlando. And then he fired everybody. Now let's be clear: Shaner had reason to drop the ax. The players were being asked by their union to strike before that night's season-opener against the Orlando Predators. The players association wanted the owners to give the players - most of whom are paid $400 a game - a $300 per game raise.

About 250 art students were evacuated from a 17-story Center City building and two restaurants on the ground floor were temporarily closed after dangerous levels of carbon monoxide set off alarms before dawn yesterday. Investigators had not determined the source of the odorless but deadly gas in the historic building on the southeast corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets by late yesterday afternoon, said Capt. Richard Davison, a Fire Department spokesman. Jared Rosado and his roommate, Nick Ryan, had slept through the alarm when they were awakened by firefighters who had entered their 17th-floor unit.

Good times no longer roll at Carmine's Creole Cafe in Bryn Mawr, which has closed while owner Howard Taylor redoes it as a Euro-Latin restaurant called Verdad ("truth" in Spanish). Nick Farina of the nearby Blush will be managing partner and executive chef. Verdad's tapas menu will be supplemented by a tequila bar and a selection of wines from Spain, Cuba, Chile, Brazil and Mexico, plus a Latin beer selection. Figure on $35 a head, including a drink and a couple of small plates.

Could a concept as enlightened as seasonal, healthful cooking possibly exist at the Cherry Hill Mall? Yes, I know we're talking about the hallowed ground where the first climate-controlled indoor mall east of the Mississippi was born nearly half a century ago. I know we're talking about a town so thoroughly infested with big-box commercialism that any hopeful sprout of independently owned-restaurant spirit is often squashed by the cheesecake weight...

Name: Chelsea Ley School: Kingsway Year: Sophomore Sport: Cross-country Credits: She is unbeaten in duals and big meets. Her time of 18 minutes, 24 seconds at Holmdel Park on Oct. 6 was the fastest of the day by 43 seconds. She set a meet record at the South Jersey Open at Delsea on Oct. 13, finishing in 17:50. She set the course record of 18:04 at Gloucester County College in the Glouco Meet. Question: What makes you such a good runner? Answer: I just think that I'm a real determined person, and I like it, too. If I didn't enjoy it so much, I would not be as good at it. Q: Do you have a certain plan before a race, or do you let it play out?

Bona Cucina Ristorante is one of those humble little neighborhood eateries that comes with that classic disclaimer usually reserved for fine-dining establishments. Somewhere on the menu you'll find a line about being patient because the food is cooked to order. At Bona Cucina - which means "good kitchen" in Italian - the food is as simple and familiar as a plate of grandma's lasagna. Still, the "patient" statement should be emblazoned on the walls. Yes, everything is custom-made here, including the pasta and homemade soups, but there's also only one chef in the kitchen.

Without knowing it, the five women who lingered over lunch at the Panera Bread bakery-cafe in Moorestown last week were just the kind of customers the restaurant's owners are looking for. Four of the five, members of a Wednesday morning Bible-study group at a nearby church, had been to the cafe before - and they had come back for more than just the food. Panera Bread Co., a St. Louis company that is expanding across the Philadelphia region at a steady clip, is one of the most successful operators of a growing breed of restaurant designed to appeal not only to patrons' lifestyle and pocketbooks but to their emotions as well.

THE TONE of Sono Motoyama's critique of Plate (June 6) was, at best, condescending. While I live and work in Center City, I have driven out to Ardmore to dine at Plate on multiple occasions. I have done so - and will continue to do it - because Plate is a great restaurant. The food, service and decor are extremely pleasing. To compare Plate to a chain like the Olive Garden is simply outrageous. I don't know if Ms. Motoyama has an ax to grind, but if she can't make it from Philadelphia to Ardmore without getting lost, she should turn in her driver's license.

There is much to like about The Bread, My Sweet, a film about biscotti, brothers, and Italian Americans in Pittsburgh. Yet while Melissa Martin's film starring Scott Baio as a corporate raider who moonlights as a master baker has all the ingredients of Moonstruck, for its first hour it is like watching dough in an oven someone forgot to turn on. Baio (who is excellent) plays Dom, the provident son who proposes marriage to Lucca (Philadelphia's own Kristin Minter), the prodigal daughter of the neighborhood.

Funeral services will be held Thursday for Susan Denise Rodgers, 21, a senior at Rowan University who died Sunday in a Moorestown automobile accident. A Delran resident for the last 18 years, she was a 1996 graduate of Delran High School, where she had been on the cheerleading squad. Ms. Rodgers was an honors student and an accounting major at Rowan in Glassboro and a member of the American Accounting Society. She belonged to the First United Methodist Church of Moorestown, where she was active in the Youth Fellowship, the choir and the handbell choir.