East Passyunk's Next Restaurants Are Showing Up Before Their Doors Open

None of East Passyunk Avenue's three most anticipated openings is serving yet. EMei at the old Marra's building was supposed to start takeout in February and dine-in this summer, and both dates have passed. Habibi Supper Club aimed for October or November in May, but by September the estimate had moved to the end of the year. Santé Social hoped to open this fall and still hasn't posted a date. As of October 10, none of them has confirmed regular service. Two of them have already appeared on the Avenue's event calendar, though. The third is a short trip to Chinatown, where it has been serving all along.

For anyone who lives within walking distance, that changes how the next few weeks work. The new places are showing up in pieces before they open.

Three addresses, three origin stories

These three projects have more in common than timing. None of them is a new concept testing the neighborhood. Each one already had a following somewhere else.

The Inquirer reported that Miled Finianos started Habibi in December 2023 as communal, ticketed dinner parties with Lebanese-inspired food. The series began in his home and later held events at R&D Cocktail Bar and El Chingón. Sommelier Daniel Solway's Santé began the same way. Guests ate tasting menus paired with wines in a makeshift dining room in his apartment, and the business later grew into catering, tastings and corporate events.

EMei followed a different path but reached the same kind of address. Chinatown restaurateur Dan Tsao bought the black-and-white-tiled building at 1734 E. Passyunk Ave. Marra's, the family-run restaurant the Inquirer described as widely considered Philadelphia's oldest pizzeria, closed there on Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. It had been open since 1927, and it closed 98 years later, a day before the sale. The Inquirer reported that the founding Marra and D'Adamo families were exploring a new location for the restaurant.

Why the dates keep moving

Construction is behind EMei's missed dates and Habibi's later estimate. Every project is turning a space built for something else into the kind of room its owner wants. Two of the three changes are bigger than they sound.

Eater Philly's fall preview put the EMei problem simply: pizza and mapo tofu need very different kitchens, and the old Marra's is in the middle of a major renovation. The goal is to open before the end of the year. When the Inquirer first reported the purchase in December 2025, the plan was takeout and delivery in February and dine-in by summer 2026. PhillyVoice gave a looser window at the time, quoting EMei as projecting summer 2026 "or later." That hedge turned out to be accurate.

Habibi's space at 1515 E. Passyunk Ave. used to be an accountant's office. According to the Inquirer's May report, the plan is a BYOB restaurant serving late breakfast and lunch, with ticketed supper-club dinners afterward. Proposed dishes include fatteh and awarma. That May report also gave the October-or-November estimate. The paper's September forecast moved it to "possibly by the end of year."

Santé Social is designed to work differently from a standard restaurant, which may explain why a firm date matters less to it. The Inquirer described a roughly 30-seat flexible venue across from the Singing Fountain. It will host wine dinners, tastings, classes, collaborations and private events, with some walk-in service. Cocktails are being developed with Danny Childs of Slow Drinks and Field Day, and rotating chefs and collaborators may shape the food. In May, Solway said he hoped to open in fall 2026.

Where they have already appeared

Both supper clubs started out as events, so it makes sense that their first appearances on the Avenue were events too.

On Thursday, Oct. 1, the East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District listed a Habibi and Philly Hummus Girl pop-up at 1515 E. Passyunk Ave., the future restaurant's own address. It ran from 5 to 8 p.m. and promised snacks and music. A pop-up at the address doesn't mean the restaurant is open. It does mean the storefront was in use about three months before the latest target date.

The next night, Santé Social did something similar on a bigger stage. During Illuminate Passyunk on Oct. 2, the BID's evening of projection art, lights and music near East Passyunk and South 11th Street, the BID's listing said Santé Social would project from its building. Frame Fatale took part the same night with a Halloween window display featuring monsters by Cindy Gonzalez Studio.

EMei has no preview on the Avenue. The Chinatown restaurant is still open, though, so the dishes headed for the old Marra's are already available a few miles north.

The two late-October dates on the Avenue

All of this leads into the last full week of October, when the BID's two biggest fall events land three days apart. The Avenue's newer and longtime businesses are all likely to be out on those days.

1. Tuesday, Oct. 13, 20 and 27, 4 to 6 p.m. Cantina Los Caballitos at 1651 E. Passyunk Ave. is running Creepy Crawly craft happy hours every Tuesday in October, with pumpkin decorating and Halloween crafts.
2. Wednesday, Oct. 28, 6 to 10 p.m. The 17th Annual Witch Craft Crawl offers seasonal brews, cocktails, crafts and charms at more than 30 bars, restaurants and shops. Tickets cost $6.66 early bird, $10 standard and $13 day-of. Each ticket includes a stamp card and a choice of a witch hat or light necklace while supplies last. Registration runs from 4 to 7 p.m. at Mark Canale Cross Country Mortgage, 1916 E. Passyunk Ave. Arrive after 7 p.m. and you won't get an accessory, but you can still join the crawl by showing your ticket. Three or more stamps enter you in a drawing for East Passyunk merch. Drop completed cards at the BID office mail slot at 1904 E. Passyunk Ave. or at Latchkey Records, 1502 E. Passyunk Ave.
3. Saturday, Oct. 31, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fall Fest takes over East Passyunk Avenue between Morris and Dickinson. Nice Things Handmade presents an 80-plus vendor market, along with food and drink, pumpkin carving, a costume contest, live music and Creepy Crawl trick-or-treating.
4. Saturday, Oct. 31, 10 p.m. to midnight. Cantina Los Caballitos closes the day with an All Hallows Eve party with themed drinks, a DJ and costume prizes.

The Fall Fest stretch from Morris to Dickinson covers the blocks where the supper clubs are moving in. Santé Social at 1546 and Habibi at 1515 are both in the 1500 block. EMei at 1734 sits a couple of blocks south. A Halloween walk down that section passes all three storefronts, whatever state each one is in that day.

The other storefronts in the same pattern

Opening slowly isn't limited to the new arrivals. Ember & Ash at 1520 E. Passyunk Ave., across the 1500 block from Habibi, has been closed since a June 24 fire. The restaurant's own site calls the closure temporary and says gift card sales go toward repairs and getting ready to reopen. A later update on the site said that two weeks after the fire, the owners still didn't know when they could reopen because they were assessing the damage and what would be required. In the meantime, the team announced a pop-up at Cartesian Brewing on Aug. 15. As of this writing, no reopening date has been posted.

Farther down the Avenue, a newer business took the event route to introduce itself. Hazel Moon Ceramics, which the BID describes as a new community ceramics studio at 1839 E. Passyunk Ave., invited neighbors in September for tours and membership information.

Across all of these businesses, the first time neighbors can step inside or taste the food has come weeks or months before regular hours. Habibi is a pop-up before it is a restaurant. Santé Social is a projection on a facade before it is a wine bar. Ember & Ash cooked at a brewery pop-up while its own kitchen waited on repairs. EMei is still a Chinatown restaurant while the building that held Marra's for 98 years becomes a Sichuan kitchen.

On Halloween, Fall Fest runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the stretch of the Avenue where Habibi and Santé Social are setting up.

At Wagner Real Estate Group, we follow East Passyunk block by block, from the 1500 block's new leases to the long renovation at 1734. If you own nearby and want to know how a changing Avenue factors into your home's value, request a free home valuation and we'll go through it with you.