Steak House

It's the age of the duopoly, in which two restaurant concepts share a building, a liquor license, management, and many fixed costs. While chains mostly practice this (such as McCormick & Schmick and William Douglas Steakhouse, and Blue2O and Chili's, both in Cherry Hill), an independent team is giving it a whirl across from the Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Horsham with the new naBrasa , a Brazilian steak house, and Iron Abbey , a gastropub. The site (680 N. Easton Rd.)

The team behind Radnor's 333 Belrose has ventured to a former paper mill on the banks of the Brandywine Creek with a steak house called Firecreek (20 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, 610-269-6000). Opening is expected next week. Developers Tom Deignan and Kevin Silverang, partnered with chef Carlo DeMarco and Robert Donaldson, hired designer Lauren Thomsen, who used some of the mill's stone, as well as cogs and wheels, in the contemporary decor, which features an open kitchen.

If there is a category for new restaurants that have set the world on fire, it would have to include Engine 46 Steak House, which opened recently in RiverView Plaza at Reed and Water Streets - in a firehouse that dates back to 1894. From the time the doors opened four weeks ago, this was a hot property. There were lines to get in, tons of people and an average waiting time of about 25 minutes. Weeknights were no exception. The steakhouse is the concept of Rick Blatstein, who also has given us Philly Rock Cafe and Maui.

The owner of the Pub restaurant closed the South Jersey landmark last night and said it would not reopen unless the union representing about 85 employees worked out a deal with a businessman hoping to buy the steak house. Owner Gary Perez said that if would-be purchaser Marc Gelman and Local 54 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union did not reach an agreement, he would try to sell the property to a developer. "Right now, the union and the purchaser are negotiating to try to come to a contract," said Perez, whose father-in-law, the late George Wolfman, opened the Pub at the Airport Circle in 1953.

Arthur "Rocco" Shore, 92, a restaurateur and businessman who operated a steak house in Center City and a chain of men's stores in Northeast Philadelphia, died Sunday, Dec. 9, at his home in Northfield, N.J. Mr. Shore operated Dave Shore's, a Jewish steak house, at Camac and Walnut Streets. It was named for his father, the co-owner, who started the business. The restaurant was launched in the 1930s at Fourth and Lombard Streets and moved to Camac Street a few years later, his daughter, Susan, said.

LOOKING for some visual nourishment with your casino-restaurant meal? Check out the views from these dining rooms: Dos Caminos Casino: Harrah's Resort Atlantic City. Cuisine: Upscale Mexican. View: The only eatery in town that faces west offers the marshes of Absecon Inlet, a pristine horizon and spectacular sunsets. Contact: 609-441-5747, doscaminos.com. Chart House Casino: Golden Nugget Atlantic City. Cuisine: American with an emphasis on seafood.

As dawn breaks over the city, the meat men pull up at restaurant back doors, dropping off steaks, ground beef, and other cuts. More of these trucks now bear a 201 or 646 area code on their doors. Pat LaFrieda and DeBragga & Spitler - New York-rooted butchers who enjoy cult followings among chefs who rave about their dry-aging - have recently begun nibbling at the wholesale-beef business in the region. Their appearance in Philadelphia has everything to do with the price of real estate in Lower Manhattan.

Irvin Rosenfeld, 89, owner of the former Longhorn Ranch restaurant in Glen Mills, Delaware County, died Sunday, July 15, of liver cancer at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He had moved from Rose Tree in the early 1980s. Known also as Jack Fields, he was born in Darby, graduated from Darby-Colwyn High School in 1941, and served in the Army from 1943 into 1946. A son, Richard, said Mr. Rosenfeld was a band leader during part of his Army service in Germany. In the early 1950s, his son said, Mr. Rosenfeld operated the Blue Note, a nightclub in Philadelphia.

THE Brothers Grigg had just started a frozen-food company to make, among other things, french fries. But what to do with the scraps of spud left behind? These potato pieces were too small for proper fries, but there were too many of them to be discarded. One day in 1953, F. Nephi Grigg came up with a delicious solution: He chopped up the potato scraps, shaped them into bite-size cylinders, then fried them golden and crunchy. Thus were born Ore-Ida Tater Tots. As the last almost 60 years have proved, Grigg's little brainstorm - a plug of shredded potato 1 1/2 inches long, 7/8-inch in diameter - has been an enormous success.

Gary Bolden is a 275-pound placekicker who grew up in a family of 16 children, hasn't played football in four years and harbors a lifelong ambition to be a professional wrestler. Other than that, he's pretty much just another round, rugged face in the crowd of free agents trying to win a place on the Eagles. Sure he is. In truth, Gary Bolden is living a three-dimensional, technicolor fantasy, the kind you stop conjuring when you're around 10 years old because it's too far removed from real life.

Arthur "Rocco" Shore, 92, a restaurateur and businessman who operated a steak house in Center City and a chain of men's stores in Northeast Philadelphia, died Sunday, Dec. 9, at his home in Northfield, N.J. Mr. Shore operated Dave Shore's, a Jewish steak house, at Camac and Walnut Streets. It was named for his father, the co-owner, who started the business. The restaurant was launched in the 1930s at Fourth and Lombard Streets and moved to Camac Street a few years later, his daughter, Susan, said.

As dawn breaks over the city, the meat men pull up at restaurant back doors, dropping off steaks, ground beef, and other cuts. More of these trucks now bear a 201 or 646 area code on their doors. Pat LaFrieda and DeBragga & Spitler - New York-rooted butchers who enjoy cult followings among chefs who rave about their dry-aging - have recently begun nibbling at the wholesale-beef business in the region. Their appearance in Philadelphia has everything to do with the price of real estate in Lower Manhattan.

THE Brothers Grigg had just started a frozen-food company to make, among other things, french fries. But what to do with the scraps of spud left behind? These potato pieces were too small for proper fries, but there were too many of them to be discarded. One day in 1953, F. Nephi Grigg came up with a delicious solution: He chopped up the potato scraps, shaped them into bite-size cylinders, then fried them golden and crunchy. Thus were born Ore-Ida Tater Tots. As the last almost 60 years have proved, Grigg's little brainstorm - a plug of shredded potato 1 1/2 inches long, 7/8-inch in diameter - has been an enormous success.

LOOKING for some visual nourishment with your casino-restaurant meal? Check out the views from these dining rooms: Dos Caminos Casino: Harrah's Resort Atlantic City. Cuisine: Upscale Mexican. View: The only eatery in town that faces west offers the marshes of Absecon Inlet, a pristine horizon and spectacular sunsets. Contact: 609-441-5747, doscaminos.com. Chart House Casino: Golden Nugget Atlantic City. Cuisine: American with an emphasis on seafood.

The Blue Bell Inn, which grew out of a mid-18th-century house at a Montgomery County crossroads, has been sold to a developer who intends to refurbish rather than flatten it. John Lamprecht, the restaurant's chef and owner since 1963, confirmed that Bruce Goodman, a longtime customer, will assume control Sept. 4. His partners in the transaction are Kevin Clib and Scott Dougherty, who own Bridget's, a steak house, and KC's Alley, a pub, in nearby Ambler. Before joining with Clib, Dougherty worked for Lamprecht for 11 years as a maitre d' and manager.

Irvin Rosenfeld, 89, owner of the former Longhorn Ranch restaurant in Glen Mills, Delaware County, died Sunday, July 15, of liver cancer at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He had moved from Rose Tree in the early 1980s. Known also as Jack Fields, he was born in Darby, graduated from Darby-Colwyn High School in 1941, and served in the Army from 1943 into 1946. A son, Richard, said Mr. Rosenfeld was a band leader during part of his Army service in Germany. In the early 1950s, his son said, Mr. Rosenfeld operated the Blue Note, a nightclub in Philadelphia.

The Christou and Kurnellas families, entering their 10th year with KC Prime steak house in Lawrenceville, N.J., have opened their second location, in a former Houlihan's in Warrington. KC Prime (1580 Easton Rd., Warrington, 267-483-8075) - warmly decorated in white brick with striking lighting fixtures - joins a burgeoning upper-casual dining scene south of Doylestown. It's across from T.J. Smith's and up the road from a new Chickie's & Pete's . Specialties are steaks, chops, and seafood; entrees start at $18 for ribs and head into the $30s.

Reading deep meaning into NFL exhibition games, particularly the opening exhibition game, is like trying to find poetry scrawled on a highway underpass. The first-team players are given their cameo appearances and then hustled to the sideline, put out of reach like porcelain vases taken from the mantel when the kids have their friends over for a party. By the end - all right, by the end of the first half - the comings and goings on the field have become so jumbled and chaotic that it is difficult to tell which players the coaches want to study, which they want to punish, and which they don't really care what happens to. The obvious guys are out of danger, wearing visors and cracking jokes.

Reading deep meaning into NFL exhibition games, particularly the opening exhibition game, is like trying to find poetry scrawled on a highway underpass. The first-team players are given their cameo appearances and then hustled to the sideline, put out of reach like porcelain vases taken from the mantel when the kids have their friends over for a party. By the end - all right, by the end of the first half - the comings and goings on the field have become so jumbled and chaotic that it is difficult to tell which players the coaches want to study, which they want to punish, and which they don't really care what happens to. The obvious guys are out of danger, wearing visors and cracking jokes.

When you are weighing the choice between two entrees, it's never a good sign when the server leans furtively toward your ear to advise sotto voce that (surprise!) the more expensive cut of steak is a better bet. My first waiter at Parker's Prime, though, managed to elevate the hard-sell to a new level of crass. The $40 "zabuton" cut of Wagyu beef, he said, was so sublimely marbled from its famously pampered breeding, "I want to marry a Wagyu wife to feed me beer and give me massages.