At 4 p.m. on a Wednesday in late August, a slow hour for most kitchens, 7th Street Burger at 1215 Frankford Ave. had a line. The Philadelphia Inquirer found the room packed that afternoon, a few days after the New York chain opened its 35th location and its first in Philadelphia.
That line is the clearest sign of what happened to Frankford Avenue in 2026. Three restaurant groups from outside Philadelphia chose this one corridor for their first location in the city. Two of them are now serving, and both already have more Philadelphia locations lined up. The third is a year behind schedule, and its website still read "Coming Soon" at the start of October. Meanwhile, Philadelphia operators kept opening places on the same blocks that exist only here.
Three first addresses on one avenue
| Business | Address | Home base | Status as of late October 2026 | Next in the region |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7th Street Burger | 1215 Frankford Ave. | New York | Open since late August | University City, Center City, Conshohocken by year-end |
| Call Your Mother | 1500 Frankford Ave. | Washington, D.C. | Open since early September | Rittenhouse, Washington Square West |
| Adda | 1700 Frankford Ave. | New York | Targeting October; site read "Coming Soon" on Oct. 1 | Not reported |
The two chains that are open have something in common. Each grew quickly on outside investment and arrived on Frankford Avenue with a plan for several Philadelphia locations.
For the two chains, Fishtown is the first pin on the map
7th Street Burger started on its namesake street in New York's East Village in May 2021. Founders Kevin Rezvani and Paras Jain opened a Greenwich Village location within a year, and venture capital firm Left Lane Capital invested in 2023. The brand has been opening up and down the East Coast since then. The menu is short: smash burgers and fries. The Fishtown location took nearly a year to open, counting from the October the chain took possession of the empty space. According to the Inquirer, more Philly-area locations are planned for University City, Center City and Conshohocken by the end of this year.
Call Your Mother took a similar route. Andrew Dana and chef Daniela Moreira opened the first shop in Washington's Park View neighborhood in 2018 as a self-described "Jew-ish" deli. The chain had a handful of D.C. locations before investment firm Invus bought a stake at the start of 2025. It now has 28 locations across Maryland, Virginia, Colorado, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The Inquirer reported that the Fishtown shop is the first of three in Philadelphia, with Rittenhouse Square and Washington Square West next.
The shop at 1500 Frankford Ave. made some effort to fit the neighborhood. The pink storefront has a mural of a cream cheese-and-lox bagel and a school of cartoon fish. Inside are Phillies bobbleheads, a tiny Liberty Bell and a bedazzled basketball, all bought from local thrift stores such as Thunderbird Salvage. The merch wall by the register sells jars from Fishtown Pickle Project alongside One Trick Pony, the peanut butter brand Dana and Moreira also co-founded. The menu has bagel sandwiches, schmears, latkes, coffee and deli-style specials.
For someone who lives a few blocks away, the sequence matters. Both chains are trying out Philadelphia on Frankford Avenue first. By the time Center City gets its own 7th Street Burger and Rittenhouse gets its own Call Your Mother, Fishtown will have had both for months.
Adda is the third first, and the slowest
Adda at 1700 Frankford Ave., across from the 19125 post office, is the most ambitious of the three. It is also the furthest behind. It comes from Unapologetic Foods, the New York group behind Dhamaka, the Michelin-starred Semma and the original Adda. The Fishtown restaurant is the group's first outside New York City.
The group signed the Fishtown lease in summer 2024 for a new three-story building. According to Tadka Table, the plans include an intimate downstairs space for chef-driven projects, with Wid Chapman Architects listed as the designer. Founders Roni Mazumdar and chef Chintan Pandya opened the first Adda in Long Island City in 2018. They reopened it in the East Village in May 2025 as "classics reimagined." The best-known feature of that New York restaurant is the Butter Chicken Experience, a pre-ordered, full-table feast with a tableside cold smoke and house-churned butters. Recent New York pricing ran around $42 a person. Tadka Table reports that the pitch for Philadelphia has included bheja masala and curry leaf crab, and that previews point to a live-fire hearth along with New York favorites such as baby goat biryani and lamb parcha. The Philadelphia menu has not been published, so all of these are best treated as placeholders.
The timeline is what stands out. The Inquirer's fall restaurant forecast counted 53 restaurants in last year's fall roundup. All but three opened. Adda is one of the three, a full year behind its original fall 2025 target and now aiming for October. On Oct. 1 the restaurant's own site still read "Coming Soon." Tadka Table suggests following addaphilly.com and Philadelphia reservation releases instead of the East Village booking page.
The Philadelphia operators opened places that exist only here
The out-of-town brands are bringing tested concepts. The local openings on the same avenue are personal projects, most of them at one address only.
In Crust We Trust, 965 Frankford Ave. opened Aug. 1 in the former Vince's Pizzeria at Frankford Avenue and Richmond Street, across from the Fillmore. It is the first solo restaurant from Anyae Wilson-Worley. She learned the business from her mother, restaurateur Felicia Wilson, who owns Amina, Avana, Fia, First Daughter Oyster & Co. and BlackHen. Working with pizzaiolo Jose Maria, Wilson-Worley serves halal New York-style pies with toppings drawn from Black culinary traditions. The Uptown Crown is topped with oxtail. The Bottom has jerk chicken with a pineapple and mango glaze. Another pie pairs Cajun shrimp with broccoli and grits.
In its August profile, the Inquirer listed the pizza Fishtown already had: Pizzeria Beddia, Liguria, Marina's, Shackamaxon, D'Oliva, Scusi, Rustica, Urban Village and Bar1010. The paper noted that no other pizzeria in the neighborhood offers toppings like these. The 80-seat restaurant has table service, a takeout counter and delivery. The menu also includes corner store wings, cheesy collard greens and a skillet cookie topped with vanilla gelato. Wilson-Worley told the Inquirer she wants the room to feel like it is "taking them back to a Harlem Renaissance type of thing." The Infatuation listed the shop as open in early October.
Kato, 1832 Frankford Ave., is Mei Mei chef-owner Jay Ho's next project, in the former Izakaya Fishtown space. The menu is inspired by Ho's Taiwanese father and the food Ho grew up eating, with Korean, Thai and Vietnamese influences. He plans to keep the front bar and replace the rear sushi counter with more seating that can also work as a private dining area. Ho is aiming for late fall.
Top Dog Cocktails, 2012 Frankford Ave., may be the smallest bar in the neighborhood: 350 square feet in a former ATM space. It will have a 15-seat bar, a two-turntable DJ station and a small retail corner. The model is the Japanese jazz kissa, a bar built around listening to vinyl. Founder Ken Smukler's company sells a 12.5% ABV canned cocktail and runs a distillery in Kennett Square, where a second, larger listening room is planned with the music venue Kennett Flash. Smukler told the Inquirer that the idea is "to drive this analog feel in a digital world." The Fishtown location is the flagship, targeted for fall without a set date.
The Inquirer's Michael Klein summed up the region's fall openings as an industry hedging its bets. Established operators are expanding and reusing familiar spaces, and newcomers are pursuing narrow, specific concepts. Frankford Avenue has both kinds within about ten blocks. A smash-burger chain at No. 35 and a bagel brand at No. 28 opened a short walk from a first-time owner's oxtail pizza and a planned record bar in a former ATM.
What to watch on Frankford Avenue before the holidays
Three of the six addresses above had not opened as of the latest reports. In the order they are most likely to change:
- Adda, 1700 Frankford Ave. October is the most recent target on record. The opening will come with Philadelphia hours, Philadelphia pricing for the Butter Chicken Experience and a published menu, none of which existed in early October.
- Kato, 1832 Frankford Ave. Late fall is the stated window, and the front bar from the Izakaya Fishtown space will stay.
- Top Dog Cocktails, 2012 Frankford Ave. This is the smallest of the three projects. It has a fall target and no set date.
One nearby space is on a longer timeline. Hiroki, the omakase counter behind Wm. Mulherin's Sons, served its last dinner on Aug. 8. Method Co. has said it plans a different concept for that Lee Street space in 2027, according to the Inquirer.
The chains will keep expanding across the region on their own schedules. For now, Frankford Avenue has the only 7th Street Burger and the only Call Your Mother in Philadelphia, and it is waiting on Unapologetic Foods' first restaurant outside New York.
Societe Select tracks openings like these street by street across Fishtown and the rest of the city. Book an Appointment to talk through what this year's openings mean for the homes nearby.
