Restaurant

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie married Philadelphia resident Tina Lai in a private ceremony this weekend. Lurie, 61, announced last July that he and Christina Weiss Lurie were getting divorced after 20 years of marriage. Lai will have no official role in the Eagles organization. The wedding was attended by family and close friends. "I am happy and excited as Tina and I begin our lives together," Lurie said in a statement. Lai, 39, is from a family that owns restaurants in Philadelphia, including the Vietnam Restaurant in Chinatown and the Vietnam Cafe in University City.

Susanna Foo has signed an agreement of sale on her Center City building, and her signature restaurant is expected to end a 22-year run as a Walnut Street anchor by early August. The restaurant, booked with reservations for Mother's Day and college graduations, is still open and is firing on all burners. The chef, who spoke about her decision reluctantly, has not announced a closing date. "This is very hard for me," said Foo, 65. A Chinese immigrant who became one of the city's first celebrity chefs, Foo gained international recognition as a trailblazer of infusing Chinese cookery with French technique.

LAST YEAR, my cell phone rang during the middle of a Phillies game. "Jon, it's Steve Suzuki,"said a shaky voice. "I'm at Mio's, and it's closed!" I had just been to Mio Pomodoro, an Italian restaurant and bar in the Jenkintown train station a few days before, and there was no talk or gossip about the place going out of business. Steve said the restaurant was dark. Now I know how people felt when Connie Mack Stadium was demolished, or how fans in Brooklyn, N.Y., mourn the loss of Ebbets Field.

EYEWITNESS NEWS anchor Susan Barnett is leaving CBS 3 and the CW Philly. Barnett has been at CBS since 2006, anchoring the evening newscasts since 2008. She anchored the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. broadcasts on CBS, and the 10 p.m. broadcast at the CW Philly, along with co-anchor Chris May . Her contract expired in March. "I have decided to not renew my contract with the stations at this time. I am incredibly thankful for having been a part of the CBS Philly family, but I feel that this is the right decision at this time," Barnett said in a statement yesterday.

Carmela Strolli, who with her husband owned and operated the landmark South Philadelphia restaurant famed for its low prices and quality fare, died Sunday. She was 81 and lived in South Philadelphia. The former Carmela Amoroso and her husband of 62 years, John D. Strolli, operated Strolli's restaurant from 1947 until they retired 11 years ago and turned the business at 1528 Dickinson St. over to a daughter, Filomena Seiple. John Strolli died last November at age 81. The restaurant had a clientele that hailed from all over the United States and abroad.

About this time of year, when all appears to have reached its bleakest, you begin looking for signs of new life. Such as a crocus cracking through the earth. Or a new restaurant. Bright, sunny and cheerful, filled with a spring-like promise of bounty. And guess what? I think I found one. It's called Alfio's. It's in Glenside, and it's only a month or so old. The place is named for Alfio Gaglianese, probably no stranger to many of the area's restaurant-goers. He was for nearly two decades the gracious and suave maitre d' of the DaVinci restaurant.

The way Jim Hamilton tells it, he's a bit fearful of his daughter for good reason. Once rebuked, twice shy, or something like that, says the man behind Hamilton's Grill Room, a Lambertville, N.J., landmark for more than two decades. The daughter who generates quakes is his youngest, Gabrielle, 46, best known as the chef/owner of the acclaimed restaurant Prune in lower Manhattan and now starring in her own nonfiction. Her memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter , The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef (Random House, March, 2011)

It's the "trucker's" moment in Philadelphia's food world now - especially when it comes to lunch. That's when some of the area's most exciting new food options are making the scene, rolling in on four wheels with a griddle full of creativity and an entrepreneurial dream. Channeling a Shane Victorino craving for Super Spam musubi? Check. Tiny Poi Dog at Temple University is your new Hawaiian snack shrine. In need of stunningly rich peanut butter ice cream sandwiched between double chocolate chip cookies?

Patrons of Downey's restaurant, a well-known Irish pub at Front and South Streets in Philadelphia, were enjoying a Mother's Day brunch at 11:35 yesterday morning when shots rang out from an apartment above the dining room. Police said that Marco Centofanti, 33, shot and wounded his mother, Adele Centofanti, 60. He then fatally shot himself with a 9mm pistol. It was an attempted murder-suicide, police said. The mother was listed in guarded but stable condition last night at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

When Andreotti's Viennese Cafe opened in Cherry Hill in 1983, Marianne Andreotti would deliver her restaurant's seven-cheese spread to people sitting outside in their cars, waiting for a table. "We were so afraid they were going to leave," said Andreotti, whose father, Mark, started the restaurant on Route 70, then primarily a pastry shop with lunch seating. The patrons stayed, and the Andreottis expanded, over the years adding a dining room, piano, bar, and dance floor. The space evolved, but the traditions remained, including free hors d'oeuvres and desserts and music and dancing on Saturday nights.

On the menu for Jersey Shore dining this summer, along with the inevitable seafood dinners and boardwalk treats, there will no doubt be a lingering aftertaste of Sandy. Whereas most springs we can begin counting the exciting new restaurant projects about to open, this year the question is more one of survival: How many restaurants are left? "I'd say as many as 20 percent of the existing restaurants may be gone," says Ed Hitzel, whose weekly Table For One radio show, Channel 40 TV segments, and self-named magazine are dedicated to the South Jersey dining scene.

When Andreotti's Viennese Cafe opened in Cherry Hill in 1983, Marianne Andreotti would deliver her restaurant's seven-cheese spread to people sitting outside in their cars, waiting for a table. "We were so afraid they were going to leave," said Andreotti, whose father, Mark, started the restaurant on Route 70, then primarily a pastry shop with lunch seating. The patrons stayed, and the Andreottis expanded, over the years adding a dining room, piano, bar, and dance floor. The space evolved, but the traditions remained, including free hors d'oeuvres and desserts and music and dancing on Saturday nights.

It's the "trucker's" moment in Philadelphia's food world now - especially when it comes to lunch. That's when some of the area's most exciting new food options are making the scene, rolling in on four wheels with a griddle full of creativity and an entrepreneurial dream. Channeling a Shane Victorino craving for Super Spam musubi? Check. Tiny Poi Dog at Temple University is your new Hawaiian snack shrine. In need of stunningly rich peanut butter ice cream sandwiched between double chocolate chip cookies?

Today - my 20th anniversary writing "Table Talk" - I'll yield the floor to a few old guys. Too often, these veterans are pushed to the side by the flavor of the month. But in an industry famous for quick flameouts, experience counts for something. What has the experience taught them? "The one thing that I have learned is that the only thing that is constant is change," said John Foy, who with his wife, Bernadette, founded East Philly Cafe on South Street in 1978. In 1982, they renamed it for their baby daughter Bridget, who runs it now. "As fast as this business changes or evolves, the more it stays the same," said Kevin Meeker, who with his wife, Janet, has owned a series of restaurants since 1976 and now has Keg & Kitchen in Westmont.

Food Network star "Big Daddy" is one step closer to opening an American bistro in downtown Camden, but with a long way to go still. Chef Aaron McCargo Jr., a Camden High School graduate whose claim to fame comes from winning Season 4 of The Next Food Network Star and from his cooking show Big Daddy's House on the network, received a $100,000 Camden Urban Enterprise Zone grant on Tuesday for his planned restaurant. McCargo wants to take over the former Market West Grill space at 3d and Market streets, along with an adjacent building.

Want a beer with that burger? How about a glass of wine with your pasta? Right now in Brookhaven, Delaware County, you can't order either. But change may be on the menu. Borough officials have collected more than enough signatures to put a referendum on the May 21 ballot that would allow restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages. Brookhaven is one of 22 municipalities in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs that are "dry" when it comes to alcohol sales in restaurants and bars.

Mark Bucher grew up in Philadelphia but sought his fortune elsewhere. After developing casual, beef-based restaurants in the Washington area, he and his partners sought to expand to Atlantic City. During their drive to scout the site, Bucher decided to take a detour to his hometown. They saw a thriving Center City, Bucher said. "We decided that Philly was the place for us," Bucher said outside the future Medium Rare, in a new apartment building on the 1600 block of Sansom Street in Center City.

Taking home leftovers from a restaurant these days is as American as the apple pie you did not finish for dessert. It was not always so. Anyone who grew up in the '60s and '70s is likely to recall that what you left on your plate at an eatery was carried back to the kitchen, never to be seen again. That is, unless, it was steak or some other hunk of meat. For that, you'd ask for a doggy bag. Recalling my own experiences working at the Pub, the Cherry Hill Inn, and Cherry Hill Lodge while in high school, the routine called for the server to take your plate back to the kitchen and return with a grease-resistant paper sack neatly folded at the top, and what remained of your steak or chicken inside.

SJ Hot Chefs, an all-star lineup of the South Jersey Independent Restaurant Association, kicks off its annual Spring Restaurant Week on Sunday to showcase the region's abundant culinary talent. At events that continue through Friday, more than 35 restaurants in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties will offer four-course menus for $25 and $35. This year, chefs also are pairing with culinary-arts students for two demonstrations Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. in Voorhees and Sewell.

A NONPROFIT GROUP in Washington thinks that we should know the players in the City Council fight to provide paid sick leave for more people employed here. We couldn't agree more. That's why we were curious about the reluctance of the nonprofit ROC Exposed to tell us more about itself. The group takes its name from its stated mission, exposing Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a pro-labor organization that pushes for paid sick days for restaurant workers. ROC Exposed, in an email to reporters just before a Council hearing Tuesday on paid sick leave, said that the issue was being pushed by a "labor union front group.