Restaurant

The enormousness that is the new Revel Atlantic City can be boiled down to numbers: 14 restaurants, 1,900 guest rooms, in a mega-casino towering 47 stories over the city's South Inlet section. But Revel's restaurant complement can be boiled down to two Philadelphia men who operate as Vibrant Development Group: Chuck Bragitikos and Jason Spillerman. More than five years ago, they met with Kevin DeSanctis, Revel's chief executive. DeSanctis told them that it not only had to be big, it had to be distinctive.

Having a beer at 9 a.m. is early, even for brewery owners. But this is a special occasion. Kevin Finn, Kevin Davies, and Mark Edelson, the three owners of the Iron Hill brewpub chain, are perched at a high table in the back of the West Chester restaurant, which, this morning, has been transformed into a makeshift film set. They are filming a training video for new employees, to ensure that the Iron Hill ethos is properly relayed. With about 900 employees, it's sort of hard for Finn, Davies, and Edelson to get face time with each new hire these days.

A man wearing a black ski mask and wielding a double-barreled shotgun robbed the Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken & Biscuits restaurant on Bethlehem Pike of more than $2,000 shortly before the restaurant closed Sunday, Springfield Township police said. The restaurant's manager was treated at Chestnut Hill Hospital for a head injury suffered when the assailant struck him with the gun, police said. They declined to release the manager's name. There were four employees in the restaurant when the gunman entered shortly before 11:30 p.m. with the shotgun concealed in a green trash bag, police said.

Frog is going. It will serve its last supper tonight. Then the restaurant where thousands of young Philadelphians learned that it was safe to eat rare calves liver (not to mention Thai chicken curry) will close. Steven Poses, the man who opened Frog 14 years ago at age 26, will be freed to concentrate on what he regards as the new frontier of gastronomy - gourmet take-out. If we are what we eat, does the closing of a once sensationally successful restaurant due to heavy financial losses mean that we have changed?

At the Hobo Pancake Kitchen, a rat recently jumped on a patron's lap. The basement of the Reading Terminal Market is infested with rats and mice. Pools of stagnant water and sewage teem with insect eggs, representing a potential health problem for the 60-odd food stalls located on the market level above. An alleged series of health code violations ranging from fly infestations to defective and dirty kitchen equipment has made H.A. Winston's Restaurant at 1500 Locust St. the target of six legal actions by the city as a result of 12 inspections in the past 14 months.

Firemen hose down S.C. Toland's Restaurant, at Ridge Pike and Main Street, in Plymouth Township, which burned to the ground yesterday. Faulty wiring is suspected.

Bio: 50; Northeast native; now in Manayunk with his wife Robyn. Training: Bucks County Community College. Philly restaurant connections: Ristorante DiLullo, Apropos, 1701 Café, Capriccio, Sonoma, Kansas City Prime, Arroyo Grille, River City Diner/Tootsie's, Fish on Main, Carmellas. What's new? More veggie options at his restaurant, Derek's (4411 Main St., 215-483-9400, dereksrestaurant.com ). "When I look at my menu I see we're lacking things that are strictly vegetables, without any dairy, without any animal fats.

After 15 years of serving an estimated five million hungry Philadelphians, the Commissary will close Oct. 25. The upscale cafeteria at 1710 Sansom St. was something of a sensation when Steve Poses opened it in 1976, and it prospered for many years. "But times change," Poses said yesterday. "We have to change with them. " Poses will move his catering operation into the space now occupied by the Commissary, with a "tasting office and library" facing Sansom Street. Poses said his extensive collection of "cookery bookery" will be accessible to the public by appointment.

The Warminster Township Planning Commission has recommended that Cucci's Ristorante obtain a variance from the township parking-space requirements before it begins construction to double its seating space. In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the commission recommended that the Board of Supervisors reject a plan to build an 80-seat, 15-by-55-foot addition to the restaurant at 41 N. York Rd. John Shihadeh, a Warrington contractor retained by Cucci's to build the addition, said the restaurant now has 80 seats.

From the Limoges porcelain and brass candlesticks to the $42.95 filet de boeuf Chasseur, nothing is cheap about Chez Robert restaurant in Westmont - except the owner, says the U.S. Department of Labor. In a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court in Camden, the department accused the exclusive restaurant of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act by not paying its employees the minimum wage, failing to pay overtime and failing to keep records detailing employees' hours. The complaint listed the names of dozens of employees the department said had been cheated since at least June 1, 1984.

Bravo hit "Top Chef" has tricked out an 18-wheeler and is roaming the country, setting up cook-offs between former cheftestants on the James Beard Award-winning show. It'll be Jennifer Carroll vs. Eli Kirshstein when "Top Chef: The Tour" rolls into town Wednesday with events at 10:30 a.m., noon and 1:30 p.m. at LOVE Park, JFK Boulevard and 16th Street. Free. Events include a "Top Chef" Horseshoe Toss. Details at bravotv.com . Summertime on the Delaware River gets some of the old buzz back with the planned opening tomorrow of Morgan's Pier (221 N. Columbus Blvd., morganspier.com )

Amis Trattoria 412 S. 13th St. 215-732-2647   Bibou 1009 S. 8th St. 215-767-0731 biboubyob.com Bistrot La Minette 623 S. 6th St. 215-925-8000 bistrotlaminette.com Caribou Café 1126 Walnut St. 215-625-9535 cariboucafe.com   Creperie Beau Monde 624 S. 6th St. 215-592-0656 creperie-beaumonde.com ...

London is the Thames, the Thames is London. It's what transported Henry VIII from his palace at Hampton Court downriver to work his evils in the heart of the city. It's what the Luftwaffe followed upriver, to bomb the factory-thick East End during World War II. For a pause while I'm running from theaters to concert halls during annual visits, the Thames is where I find a soothing hour, at bankside restaurants and pubs. In recent years, applause has gone to the eighth-floor restaurant in the lipstick-shaped Oxo Tower, across the river from St. Paul's Cathedral.

"WATCH US do it fresh," is how the owners of the local restaurant chain Nifty Fifty's pitch customers on the chain's website. A bit too fresh for Uncle Sam, apparently. The U.S. attorney in Philadelphia have charged two owners and three managers of the chain — which includes five locations in southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey — with tax evasion for allegedly masterminding a long-running scheme to evade millions of dollars in personal and employment taxes. Those charged Wednesday include: Robert Mattei, 73, of Delray Beach, Fla.; Leo McGlynn, 52, of Swarthmore; Joseph Donnelly, 49, and Brian Welsh, 48, both of Springfield, Delaware County; and Elena Ruiz, 46, of Drexel Hill.

When "It's Our Money" started asking questions in March, officials insisted that the city doesn't pay utility bills for Water Works Restaurant & Lounge, a private business owned by the politically-connected Michael Karloutsos. The high-end eatery leases space in a historic city-owned building near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It has crystal chandeliers, $39 dinner entrées , and an outdoor deck with a stunning view of the Schuylkill River. Why would the fancy place need taxpayers to cover its bills?

A menu of lichen, pine needles, and hay once again has trumped classic cuisines in a ranking of the world's top restaurants. For a third consecutive year, chef Rene Redzepi's diminutive but innovative Danish restaurant, Noma, earned the top spot in Restaurant magazine's annual S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards, announced Monday in London. Redzepi cooks with a meticulous focus on indigenous ingredients, from moss and snails to sloe berries and unripe plums.

Armed robbers broke into a Chinese restaurant in West Philadelphia early this morning and held a family of three hostage for almost 2 ½ hours until a police convinced them to surrender, officials said. Police said three men, two of them armed, entered the Hong Heng restaurant at the corner of Ogden and 42nd Streets in the Belmont neighborhood about 12:40 a.m. Inside were the couple in their 40s who own the restaurant and live with their young daughter in an apartment on the second floor of the building.

During the dinner rush hour Wednesday, the steel gates at Hong Heng, a Chinese takeout restaurant, were shut and the trash can in front was stuffed with yellow police tape. Hours earlier, the owners of the neighborhood eatery at the corner of 42d and Ogden Streets in West Philadelphia had been held hostage by three gun-wielding men in their early 20s who police said lived in the area. A police negotiator made contact with the barricaded robbers and persuaded them to release the three hostages before surrendering about 3 a.m., police said.

IS AMERICA ready for vegan fast food? Two joints that just opened — one in Center City, the other on the Main Line — indicate that at least Philly is. And how. HipCityVeg , off Rittenhouse Square (127 S. 18th St.), has been open for barely two weeks and already it's something of a phenomenon. This seems partly due to the attention to detail in its planning, and partly that people just really, really like the food. "We planned for a gradual increase [in customers]," owner Nicole Marquis told me. That part of the plan was thrown out the window on the first day when HipCity wound up mobbed with curious customers and ran out of food.

A 36-year-old Camden man, who police say was a bystander, was shot and killed early Friday inside a Camden chicken restaurant. Another man, a 22-year-old Camden resident, was shot in the incident. According to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, an altercation broke out at the Crown Fried Chicken about 5 a.m. between the shooter, his friend, and a group of other men. The homicide victim, whose name has not been released, was sitting in a booth with a woman during the fight. Once the incident turned violent, the pair attempted to escape, and the man was struck by a stray bullet.