Wegmans

Just off the produce aisle in the newest supermarket here is a room with concert-like flat screens, rows of seats and a massive stove beneath video cameras. This is the cooking school at Super Giant. It is next to the dietitian's office. Which is next to the wireless cafe. Which is by the free day-care center and valet checkout. A sprawling wing upstairs is called the community center. Its meeting rooms resemble what you'd see at a hotel. Did we mention this is a grocery store?

WILLOW GROVE, Pa. - Just off the produce aisle in the newest supermarket here is a room with concert-like flat screens, rows of seats and a massive stove beneath video cameras. This is the cooking school at Super Giant. It is next to the dietitian's office. Which is next to the wireless cafe. Which is by the free day-care center and valet checkout. A sprawling wing upstairs is called the community center. Its meeting rooms resemble what you'd see at a hotel. Did we mention this is a grocery store?

Bags of baby spinach inhabited the display case once occupied by now- sold-out meat. A long line waited at the deli counter. By mid-morning yesterday, the bagels were disappearing as soon as they popped out of the oven. Even if this weekend's snow doesn't turn out to be the perfect storm, it was the perfect storm threat for the giant Wegmans grocery in Downingtown. "Insane is an understatement," said manager Kevin Russell, in amazingly good cheer for someone who had just worked a 15-hour day. "Insane in a really good way. " Wegmans was braced for the typical pre-storm rush of panic shoppers, but as early as 9 a.m. Thursday, Russell knew he was dealing with a stampede.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The poor get no love from the Corbett administration. Just look at the governor's proposed budget cuts. Come July, life is bound to get even rougher for poor, disabled, and disenfranchised Pennsylvanians. Surely compassion must be on the chopping block, too. How can we forget Corbett's "close your eyes," the cruelty of making women get a fetal ultrasound exam before they can get an abortion? Seems the governor is trying a spend-down strategy to justify his scorched-earth slashing.

Bottom Dollar Food, the grocery chain that moved into the Philadelphia region 18 months ago with a deep-discount format and new stores across Southeastern Pennsylvania, announced Tuesday it would open four more stores in South Jersey. A store on Route 130 North in Cinnaminson was set to open Friday, and additional openings were planned through next year on West Browning Road in Bellmawr, Broad Street in Woodbury, and Route 38 in Mount Holly, the North Carolina-based company said.

Debate raged on last night as the township planning board considered a piece of a plan to reinvent the historic Garden State Park racetrack site. Some call Turnberry Cherry Hill L.L.C.'s plan - a combination of big-box stores, offices, open space, and a dense mix of apartments and condominiums - an excellent opportunity to attract regional buzz. Others fear it will waste the 223-acre tract, one of South Jersey's prime pieces of real estate, and ruin Cherry Hill's chances at rebirth.

A basic loaf of bread might contain only four elements - flour, yeast, water and salt. But transforming that handful of humble ingredients into a slice of heaven sometimes requires a proper brick oven, one that can sustain temperatures of more than 450 degrees. And to fuel such a beast you need wood - plenty of it. At Wegmans they know about wood. When the supermarket chain's 71st store opens in Cherry Hill next month, the job of keeping the hearth fire burning will be well under way. In this case, it's no small brick oven.

In the Region Pa. slot revenue sets record Pennsylvania's 11 casinos pulled in more than $233.1 million in gross slot machine revenue last month, setting an all-time monthly high since the state's first casino opened in November 2006 and cementing the state's status as the nation's second-largest gambling market. The slots totals released by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board include revenue from two test nights and one day of operations at the state's 11th casino, Valley Forge Casino Resort, which opened Saturday.

Deregulation is the culprit Charles Krauthammer would have us believe in his Memorial Day screed on the oil spill that the fault lies with rabid environmentalism and, of course, President Obama ("Many to blame for oil spill," Monday). The word that Krauthammer, the GOP, and their lapdogs in the media forget is deregulation. Krauthammer and the media also refuse to ask BP why it didn't drill a relief well at the same time. BP, Transocean, and Halliburton were operating the rig, and saving cash was all that mattered.