Restaurant

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.

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.

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.

An 18th-century schoolhouse in Whitemarsh that has served as a restaurant since 1982 is expected to undergo another renovation as an office complex. The Whitemarsh Zoning Hearing Board approved using the building at 561 Bethlehem Pike for offices Wednesday when it granted an application from owners Ronald and Beatrice Kline to convert the building from a restaurant. Ronald Kline told the board that the offices would be a less intensive use and would create less traffic than the restaurant.

An Elkins Park youth was shot in the leg early yesterday morning as he dined with a friend at a Chinatown restaurant after the pair apparently quarreled with three other men. Michael Sul, 17, of the 7600 block of Massey Way, was shot at the Ho Sai Gai Restaurant just after 2 a.m. Police said Sul and a companion, Sag Gin Kim, 18, of the first block of 69th Street in Upper Darby, were eating at the restaurant, at 10th and Cherry Streets, when...

Representatives of the H. A. Winston's Co. restaurant in Warrington say it wants to give the customers more of what they like - namely, barbecued ribs. However, because space for extra food storage is limited, the restaurant has run into delays, said Bruce Epstein, vice president of the company. At a hearing Monday night, the Warrington Zoning Hearing Board suggested an alternative site to the proposed storage area behind the restaurant, 1111 Easton Rd. Saying current storage space was "inadequate," Epstein had requested approval of a variance that would allow two 20-by-25-foot freezer and storage buildings in a buffer zone behind the restaurant.

Pizza Hut of America Inc. is seeking special permission from the Haverford Township Zoning Hearing Board to build a restaurant on Township Line Road south of Darby Road. The board focused its attention on traffic that would be generated onto Township Line Road, already a heavily traveled four-lane roadway, when it heard Pizza Hut's application Thursday night. The board noted that the state Department of Transportation (PennDOT) must approve changes affecting Township Line Road, which is a state highway.