October 26, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

Cafette: love stirred into every dish for 15 years
by LEN LEAR

Running a neighborhood restaurant in Chestnut Hill is as hard as herding cats, but Jan Wilson, who is to sweetness what yeast is to beer, has managed the feat for almost 15 years. It hasn’t hurt that her personality isas smooth as aged cognac.

Jan’s baby, Cafette, at 8136 Ardleigh St., is the only restaurant in the Chestnut Hill area that is not only on a non-major road but is the only business on a residential street that otherwise has only single-family homes.

Warm welcome to Mt. Airy school for Chinese mom, son
by DEBBIE LERMAN

Chinese student Qui Yang (age 12) and his mother, Linda, at the Project Learn School in Mt. Airy. (Photo by Debbie Lerman)

For the past two months, Qui Yang (pronounced “Choo Ying”), a 12-year-old from the city of Guangzhou in China’s southern Guangdong province, has been studying at the Project Learn School in Mt. Airy.

He came with his mother, Qin Shan, who goes by the English name Linda and who is working on a research project at Temple University on “information openness of the federal government in the United States.” Linda is an associate professor of International Relations, specializing in American Studies, at Jinan University in Guangzhou.

Mt. Airy woman pens musical about G’town Avenue history
by MICHAEL CARUSO

Pat Lewis stands in front of her favorite trolley, the Route 23. Actually it’s the converted trolley that is now the Trolley Car Ice Cream Store at 7611 Germantown Ave. (Photo by Len Lear)

For most residents of Northwest Philadelphia, the trolley line running along Germantown Avenue is a charming patch in the quilt of Philadelphia’s three-centuries-plus history. Begun in the 1850s with horse-drawn cars and electrified in the 1890s, the trolley line traversed what was one of the original “pikes” linking the colonial and federal city of Philadelphia — only a small portion of Philadelphia County prior to the 1854 Act of Consolidation — to such outlying townships as Germantown and beyond.

For Mt. Airy’s Pat Lewis, however, the trolley line and “The Ave.” along which it ran are the inspiration for the book of a projected musical appropriately called The Ave.

Lewis was born and grew up on Mt. Pleasant Avenue. After stays in Boston and North Carolina to further her education, she returned to Philadelphia, first living in the Nicetown section of the city. Since 1963, however, she has lived in a house built right on Germantown Avenue in 1863, as the War Between the States was raging. There she raised three children.

G’twn music studio expands to the Hill
by BETH A. BROOKS

Rich Rudin, at the recent Fall for the Arts Festival with Sandra Day (singer) and Susie Alexander, Rose Gannone and Elizabeth Burns, all from Intermission. (Photo by Beth Brooks)

Long a staple in Maplewood Mall in Germantown, the Maplewood Music Studio has expanded and opened a second location on the second floor of Intermission, 8405 Germantown Ave. The original location will remain open.

Hill Hospital top exec oversees $46 million expansion
by PAULA M. RILEY

Jon Nalli is overseeing the $46 million in capital improvement projects planned for the next five years at Chestnut Hill Hospital. (Photo by Paula M. Riley)

This is the third in a new series of articles by Chestnut Hill writer Paula M. Riley. Each week Riley will profile a business, community or educational leader.

Jonathan Nalli considers himself lucky to have had great mentors throughout his life. “My mentors have allowed me to get where I am today,” he told me recently. Where is that? He is the chief operating officer of Chestnut Hill Hospital.

Chiropractor owner of Kildare’s Pubs has real backbone
by LEN LEAR

Dave Magrogan is a true American Dream story, a working class guy turned chiropractor turned restaurant entrepreneur, all by the age of 32.

Dave Magrogan’s American Dream life has been almost too good to be true. Dave, just 32 now, grew up in an Irish Catholic working class household in Brookhaven, Delaware County. Starting at age 15, he worked after school washing dishes in the kitchen of the Lobster Pot in Media. He continued working his way through college and graduate school by waiting on tables, bartending, even doing some cooking and managing in restaurants.

After graduating with a pre-med degree from West Chester University, Dave attended and graduated from the Chiropractic from Life University in Atlanta. But Dave, who had become hooked on the restaurant business, still had a dream to open an Irish pub. “I would sit for hours planning events and promotions for my imaginary pub,” he recalls.