Anyone who walks Lancaster Avenue past Bryn Mawr Village has asked some version of the same question by now: what happened to the restaurant in that corner spot again? The address is 915 Lancaster Ave, tucked into the brick-and-timber shopping center that Blank Aschkenasy Properties built out of a 1920s SEPTA garage. The bones of the space are good enough that three different restaurateurs have chosen not to touch them. What none of the three has managed to do is stay.
Since 2017, that single storefront has operated under three names. The rest of Bryn Mawr Village, a few doors down, has barely changed at all. That gap between one restless slot and a center that otherwise holds steady is the actual story here, and it says something about what a landlord is willing to bet on, not about whether people in Bryn Mawr eat out.
Three Names on One Door
| Year | Occupant | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Enoteca Tredici | Opened to strong early business |
| 2021 | Enoteca Tredici | Closed, citing financial strain compounded by the pandemic |
| 2022 | Fiore Rosso | Opened with ties to chef Marc Vetri, its debut delayed months by late furniture shipments |
| 2024 | Il Fiore | Fiore Rosso rebranded under this name |
| Early 2026 | Il Fiore | Closed |
| Fall 2026 | Alessandro's Enoteca | Expected to open, third location for chef Alex Fiorello |
Enoteca Tredici was, by contemporary accounts, a genuine hit when it debuted in 2017. It didn't survive the combination of financial trouble and the pandemic that closed it in 2021. What replaced it carried real pedigree: Fiore Rosso opened in 2022 with a connection to Marc Vetri, one of Philadelphia's best known chef names, though the launch itself was unglamorous. Furniture shipments ran so late that the restaurant's outdoor sign still hadn't arrived by the end of that August. The concept was rebranded Il Fiore in 2024 and closed at the start of this year. Now the space is waiting on its third occupant in under a decade: an offshoot of Alessandro's Wood Fired Italian & Bar, the Wayne restaurant run by 28-year-old chef Alex Fiorello.
A Landlord Who Doesn't Do Safe
The pattern at 915 Lancaster Ave stands out because it isn't how the rest of the center behaves. Paul Aschkenasy, managing partner of Blank Aschkenasy Properties, built Bryn Mawr Village around the idea of avoiding predictable tenants. He converted the old garage building into the home of La Colombe, the Philadelphia coffee roaster, specifically because he wanted an anchor with character rather than a chain that could go anywhere. In his own words to the Inquirer, the goal was to stay away from "big commodity products" and lease instead to small, local, or regional brands with a distinctive character. La Colombe has anchored that same address since the center opened, with no churn at all.
That's what makes 915 Lancaster Ave the exception rather than the rule. It isn't that Bryn Mawr Village can't hold a tenant. It's that this particular slot keeps getting handed to restaurants chasing a specific, higher-variance kind of bet, wine bar and Italian fine dining with a name attached, rather than a category the landlord already knows will hold steady.
Same Genre, Different Name
Look closely at what each occupant actually promised, and a pattern emerges that goes beyond bad luck. Enoteca Tredici was a wine bar. Fiore Rosso opened with ties to Marc Vetri and carried that Italian fine-dining identity through its 2024 rebrand as Il Fiore. Alessandro's Enoteca, still under construction as of this writing, is being pitched by both sides as something slightly different in emphasis, even if the genre is the same.
Fiorello has said the new spot will be "a step up from Wayne" but still "approachable" and built around "a great bar scene." Aschkenasy has framed what he wants from the space in almost the opposite direction from what the address has produced twice before: a restaurant "that appeals to so many of our neighbors, has a lively bar scene, and is priced such that people can visit on a regular basis." That's a landlord asking for frequency, not occasion, after two tenants in a row built their identity around the latter. Whether that shift actually changes the address's luck is the open question for this fall.
The Rest of Bryn Mawr Is Not Struggling to Fill Seats
None of this is a demand problem. While one storefront on Lancaster Avenue keeps resetting, the rest of the corridor is in the middle of an actual boom. Dim Sum Factory, a local Asian restaurant chain, is expected to open a Bryn Mawr location this winter. Flakely, a gluten-free bakery that started in a Manayunk industrial kitchen, is opening its own storefront on Lancaster Avenue. Love & Honey Fried Chicken, a Berwyn-owned franchise whose original Northern Liberties location built a citywide following for its buttermilk-fried chicken, has already opened its first Main Line store here, its second location overall.
Put plainly: Bryn Mawr's appetite for new restaurants is strong enough to support a wine bar concept, a gluten-free bakery, and a fried chicken spot all arriving within the same stretch of road. The one address that keeps failing isn't failing because the neighborhood stopped eating out. It's failing because it keeps being asked to carry the riskiest kind of restaurant on the block.
The Opening Date Keeps Sliding
Even the timeline for Alessandro's Enoteca has been harder to pin down than early reporting suggested. When the deal was first announced in January 2026, the expectation floated by sources close to the project was that the new restaurant could open "as early as April." By April, coverage had shifted to describing the project as still in the planning stage, with no firm date attached. As of this writing, Alessandro's own website lists the Bryn Mawr location as "Coming Soon, September 2026." The most recent restaurant industry reporting, published within the past two weeks, now points to a mid-to-late October opening instead.
None of that is unusual for a restaurant build-out, and it says nothing about whether the concept will work once it opens. But it's worth knowing if you've been checking that storefront window every few weeks expecting a ribbon cutting. The sign has said "coming soon" for most of this year, and the actual date has moved at least twice since January.
What the Sign Says About the Block
The honest read on 915 Lancaster Ave is that it keeps getting the swing the landlord always intended for this center, distinctive over safe, rather than a retreat to something predictable. That's consistent with how Aschkenasy built the rest of Bryn Mawr Village. It's also exactly why this one address has had a harder time than its neighbors. Wine bars and chef-driven Italian dining carry more variance than a coffee roaster or a fitness studio, and variance means some of those bets don't survive contact with a pandemic, a slow build-out, or simply changing hands too many times.
Whether Alessandro's Enoteca is the one that finally sticks may come down to the shift Aschkenasy himself described: a restaurant built for a Tuesday night, not just an occasion. For now, the honest answer to what's happening at that address is that nobody quite knows yet, and the date on the door has already been wrong twice.
If you're watching Bryn Mawr's Lancaster Avenue corridor for reasons that go beyond dinner plans, whether that's a home search, a relocation, or simply staying current on how the neighborhood is changing, the team at Societe Select tracks this stretch of the Main Line closely. Book an Appointment to talk through what's actually happening on the ground here.
