Chain dish
Word on three newcomers, including one Chicago-based player looking to open in Center City.
The development at Willow Grove Park mall -- on the third level where Strawbridge's was -- will include Bravo Cucina Italiana, a white-tablecloth restaurant with an open kitchen and a decor designed to evoke Roman ruins. There's one open now in Lehigh Valley Mall. The Ohio-based chain also owns Brio, a Tuscan grill with locations in Cherry Hill, Marlton, and Newark, Del.
Joe's Crab Shack, a seafooder out of Houston (with locations in Lawrenceville and Wilmington), will take the burned-out Houlihan's space in the 555 building on City Avenue in Bala Cynwyd.
This one's not quite signed, but I hear that Chicago-based group Restaurants-America intends to take over the shuttered Roy's at 15th and Sansom Streets with one of its concepts, probably its businesspersons-friendly American wine bar Townhouse. Developers-brothers Joe and David Grasso had been planning a bar-restaurant called American Oak on that spot, but that plan has been scuttled.