Snack Bar

A request for a special exception to operate a snack bar and automobile repair shop in the former Folcroft police station was heard by the Folcroft Zoning Hearing Board. The former police station, at 1555 Baltimore Ave., is vacant after having been used as an office building. Although the building is in an area already zoned for commercial use, a special exception is needed to operate food and auto repair businesses anywhere in the borough. The applicants, Thomas and Patricia D'Orazio, told the board Mondaynight that they wanted to open a newsstand and snack bar in front of the building, which is next to a SEPTA train station.

A series of 4-3 votes by the Marple Township commissioners on Monday night put the finishing touches on plans for the Paxon Hollow Golf Course. At the commissioners meeting, the board approved a final land development plan, awarded construction bids and decided to advertise for the club's professional management. "You can think this is a wonderful day, but it's not," said Commissioner L. Stephen Sudhop. Sudhop and Commissioners John R. Longacre and Robert L. Bernstein voted as a bloc against all of the Paxon Hollow resolutions.

Gene Williams never saw the punch that has staggered the Hall of Justice, all the way from his no-frills snack bar in the basement to the chambers of the senior judges on the top floor. His eyesight is almost totally gone from retinitis pigmentosa. He heard the blow, however, and he is sure it cracked against the jaw of his only sighted worker, Patricia Santiago, who now is going to lose 45 days of work and pay because of it. But a Superior Court administrator has ruled that it was Santiago, 38, who punched jury aide Tina Williams, in her early 20s, who was complaining that cold morning in late February that her coffee and soda order was two items short.

Bill Hentschel sums up his feelings about life at Summit Stonefield, a two-year-old luxury rental community in Bucks County: "I feel really comfortable that the tenants are the main focus here," he said. The cookies, popcorn and juice that are usually put out for residents at the snack bar in the clubhouse send that message. Then there is the clubhouse itself. Beautifully furnished, surrounded by glass patio doors and windows, and featuring a gas fireplace, window seats, and a kitchen, it feels just like home.

Under a burning, late afternoon sun, Haddonfield officials presided last week at groundbreaking ceremonies for a new Crows Woods recreation building. Located near the entrance to the park on Southeast Atlantic Avenue, the facility will serve the hundreds of users of the park's eight acres of recreational fields and more than 60 acres of woodland. R.D. Zeuli Inc. of Marlton is erecting the building - the borough's first new building in more than 30 years - for $203,788. Sporting baseball caps trimmed with a black-and-white crow design, created for the ceremony, Commissioners Letitia G. Colombi and Theodore R. Dorn bent their backs to the occasion on Monday.

Their small bodies shoot across the ice, intensely aware of their coaches' scrutinizing eyes. Get some power in your skating - left foot, right foot - check for teammates, follow the puck. Then - wham! - they explode into each other, battling for the small piece of rubber. Someone scores a goal. The coaches call a timeout to dispense tips and offer praise. Parents in the stands beam with pride. For these young Gloucester County residents, the chance to play hockey has become a reality.

Maintenence men look at a car that went through a window of the snack bar at Jeanes Hospital in Fox Chase, about 2 p.m. yesterday. Herman Kaemf, 88, of Newtown, was driving, a nursing supervisor said. Three people in the snack bar were hurt. One was listed in fair condition last night.

After six years of quarreling and indecision among Marple Township officials over what kind of clubhouse to build at the Paxon Hollow Country Club, the Board of Commissioners next week is expected to vote on whether to construct a snack bar and lounge. The push for the vote came after a meeting Tuesday among members of the board, the Paxon Hollow board of directors and the Municipal Authority. For years, members of the three municipal boards have been unable to agree on what kind of facility is needed to replace the present clubhouse.

Marple Township commissioners have decided to close the decrepit clubhouse at the Paxon Hollow Country Club and rent a trailer to house a temporary snack bar in its place. The action was approved Tuesday night by a 6-1 vote, with First Ward Commissioner Martin Nash voting against it. Nash said Paxon Hollow should use vending machines instead of a vendor. Seventh Ward Commissioner L. Stephen Sudhop, who had previously opposed renting a trailer, voted to approve its use. Sudhop said he changed his mind after he found that renting a trailer would be economical.

An announcers' deck, recently attached to the roof of a snack bar at a township baseball field, was supposed to make it easier for them to see the game. Unfortunately, one neighbor saw more than he wanted, mostly when the announcers were adjusting their pants. "I find it mandatory to complain about this eyesore," said Broomall resident Mark Lisberger, following up an earlier complaint at the Board of Commissioners' work session Tuesday night. The deck, overlooking the Lisberger family's back yard and kitchen, was recently attached to the snack bar of the Babe Ruth League baseball field on Stanfield Lane.

Jacquelynn Puriefoy-Brinkley felt no sense of triumph when she walked through the door of the shuttered swim club. President at the time of the Yeadon Borough Council, she felt only a sweep of emotion so overpowering that she had to escape. She hurried out the door. That was about 10 years ago at the Yeadon Swim Club, a facility that 40 years earlier had been an unwelcoming place for the black community. Inside, she saw the embodiment of the concept "separate but unequal. " Yet that painful time and place in Delaware County led to a historic outcome that has given countless hours of splash-filled fun to black families: This month, the Nile Swim Club of Yeadon observes its 50th anniversary as the nation's first African American-owned and -operated private swim club.

The word Palestra on the side of a dilapidated building was good for a smile. The street called Via Filadelfia was a warming sight on a cold night. But it was the little handmade sign on the window of Mangia e Bevi Snackbar that brought on a full attack of homesickness: "Philly Cheese Steaks. " Now I know what you're thinking. You can't get a decent cheesesteak outside a 20-mile radius of Ninth and Passyunk. I've seen everything from hot roast beef sandwiches to hunks of sirloin on kaiser rolls passed off as Philadelphia cheesesteaks, and that's during travels in the States.

The Battleship New Jersey crew has launched its Spring Family Overnight Encampments, the experience of a Friday or Saturday night onboard with Navy veterans. The ship begins boarding passengers at 6 p.m. Families are assigned bunk compartments, attend a safety fire drill on deck, and learn emergency preparedness. Then the fun begins, with a guided tour and a ride on the ship's new 4D Flight Simulator, followed by "chow" (dinner) in the mess deck. The rest of the night guests explore ship grounds, snack in the Geedunk (snack bar)

My dentist's office in Northeast Philadelphia is across the street from the elementary school I attended in the 1950s. It is also near the house I lived in with my parents and younger sister. Once, after a dental appointment, I had a couple minutes before rushing off to do Saturday errands. I felt a sentimental pull and turned right on my former street instead of taking the 20-minute ride home. That turn took me to the house that my mother sold when my father died in 1993. A typical modest rowhouse built after World War II, it had a small front lawn and a driveway in the back.

Atop a cliff on the Pacific shore, Jim McHugh and Sean Casey are standing at Pebble Beach's famous No. 7 hole. The sun is shining and the waves are breaking as the pair eye the breathtaking par 3 along the Monterey Peninsula. With the press of a button, they can control the wind, fog, and time of day. Or they can transport themselves to Spyglass Hill, St. Andrew's Old Course, the Bay Harbor Golf Club, or one of 18 other famous courses. How is that possible? McHugh and Casey are actually teeing off at Play-a-Round Golf, a new indoor golf complex in Malvern.

Atop a cliff on the shore of the Pacific, Jim McHugh and Sean Casey are standing at Pebble Beach's famous No. 7 hole. The sun is shining above and the waves are breaking below as the pair eye the breathtaking par 3 along the Monterey Peninsula. With the press of a button, they can control the wind, fog, and time of day. Or they can transport themselves to Spyglass Hill, St. Andrews Old Course, Bay Harbor Golf Club, or one of 18 other famous courses. How is that possible? McHugh and Casey are actually teeing off at Play-a-Round Golf, a new indoor golf complex in Malvern.

Recently a friend of mine asked me to be a "ringer" in a bowling league. Ringer may be the wrong term, since that usually implies someone who's "got game" and knows what the heck he's doing, as opposed to moi. I hadn't picked up a bowling ball since I hung out at the Bowl-e-Rama in Jersey City on the shadowy side of Bayside Cemetery. There, pool hustling was considered more gentrified than pitching pennies, and definitely more lucrative a hustle than throwing keggle-balls down a lane for the pure thrill of hearing the rumbling thunder and the slapped high-fives that always follow a strike or a spare.

The word Palestra on the side of a dilapidated building was good for a smile. The street called Via Filadelfia was a warming sight on a cold night. But it was the little handmade sign on the window of Mangia e Bevi Snackbar that brought on a full attack of homesickness: "Philly Cheese Steaks. " Now I know what you're thinking. You can't get a decent cheesesteak outside a 20-mile radius of Ninth and Passyunk. I've seen everything from hot roast beef sandwiches to hunks of sirloin on kaiser rolls passed off as Philadelphia cheesesteaks, and that's during travels in the States.

The jury lounge is a bit dingy at Camden's Hall of Justice, but the aroma of hot dogs from the courthouse snack bar sends a comfort-food signal that although prospective jurors may be bored to tears, at least they won't go hungry. There, in the spartan basement, potential jurors can sip coffee as they read newspapers on comfy burgundy sofas, plug a laptop into the new data port, and settle into makeshift work stations at stark but serviceable folding tables. Though such amenities - added in the last year - are hardly striking, they are part of a quiet revolution sweeping courthouses across the nation as judges and court officials seek to make life easier for jurors.

The place isn't crammed with antiques or kitsch memorabilia. It doesn't need to be. Because the Holiday Snack Bar, a stucco white building trimmed in red tucked away near the bay in Beach Haven, is itself an antique. Through mighty storms and hurricanes and the development and redevelopment of Long Beach Island several times over, this tiny eatery whose sign boasts "homemade snacks" has remained much the way it was when two sisters opened it as a clam bar during the summer of 1948.