A look back at Philly-area businesses that didn’t survive 2025

Last year, you may have celebrated Christmas or New Year’s with a meal at an Iron Hill Brewery.

At the time, your holiday preparations may have included trips to Joann fabrics or Party City, which was having its going-out-of-business sale. You may have stopped for medicines and other toiletries at Rite Aid.

This year, however, you can’t go to any of those places: All of these businesses served their last customers in 2025.

Here’s a look back at a few of the notable Philly-area businesses that closed in the past year.

It didn’t come as a total surprise when Rite Aid filed for its second bankruptcy in less than two years.

The Navy Yard-based pharmacy chain had closed dozens of locations in recent years. Even after it emerged from its first bankruptcy in September 2024, shelves meant to be filled with drugstore essentials — such as cold medicines and pain relievers — remained bare at some stores.

In filing for bankruptcy again, Rite Aid announced that it would be closing or selling all locations. At the time, it had about 1,000 stores nationwide, including about 100 in the Philadelphia region.

» READ MORE: The rise and fall of Rite Aid

Across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, thousands of Rite Aid workers lost their jobs. Some, like Angela Gardin, also said bittersweet goodbyes to regular customers.

Gardin, assistant manager at the Queen Village Rite Aid, was moved to tears by customers’ handwritten thank you notes, which were scrawled on pieces of paper and taped to the store’s front window in its final months.

By late August, all Pennsylvania and New Jersey Rite Aids had shut their doors for good, sending prescriptions to CVS, Walgreens, or other local pharmacies of a customer’s choosing.

The closures further exacerbate pharmacy access issues, especially for lower-income Philadelphians who don’t have cars. People in more isolated rural areas are also impacted: The 46,000 residents of Perry County, west of Harrisburg, lost half their pharmacies when their three Rite Aids closed.

Iron Hill Brewery’s closure was so abrupt that fans didn’t even get to raise one last pint to the regional chain.

On a Thursday morning in late September, the nearly 30-year-old company, considered by many to be a pioneer of the local craft-brewing scene, announced that its brewpubs had closed their doors for the last time.

The news left 16 massive Iron Hill shells, including in Center City, Exton, Huntingdon Valley, Maple Shade, Media, Newtown, North Wales, West Chester, and Wilmington. Earlier in September, the company had closed locations in Chestnut Hill and Voorhees, as well as its flagship brewery in Newark, Del.

Bankruptcy filings shed more light on the Exton-based company’s financial straits: Iron Hill owed more than $20 million to creditors and had about $125,000 in the bank.

In November, a bankruptcy judge approved an offer by Jeff Crivello, the former CEO of Famous Dave’s BBQ, to resurrect 10 Iron Hills, including in Center City and West Chester, pending landlord negotiations. The restaurants could be reopened as Iron Hills or as other brands.

Crivello said he plans to reopen the Rehoboth Beach brewpub — as well as the Iron Hill restaurants in Columbia and Greenville, S.C. — as locations of Virginia-based Three Notch’d Brewing Co.

The fates of the other ex-Iron Hills will be determined in the bankruptcy process. Brewing equipment, furniture, and other items from the closed restaurants were auctioned off earlier this month.

Local chains weren’t the only business casualties of 2025.

Main Line residents lost Lower Merion-based Maxwell Taxi Cab Co. in February, marking the end of an era for suburban-based cabs. Maxwell, which had operated for more than 50 years, was later acquired by a Bryn Mawr-based limo service called ML Car Service Ltd.

Also in Lower Merion, consumers lost the Gladwyne Market, a community grocery store.

In South Jersey, the Bistro at Cherry Hill, a beloved restaurant that operated in a 1,200-square-foot mall kiosk for 27 years, closed abruptly in July.

At the time, the restaurant’s president, Andy Cosenza, said the closure was due to a communication “breakdown” that had resulted in his voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition being converted to a Chapter 7, or liquidation, without his knowledge. Since then, however, Cosenza has been indicted on charges of tax fraud. The Bistro has remained closed.

In the city, the Macy’s in the Wanamaker Building closed in March, as did the Macy’s at the near-dead Exton Square Mall. And the latest iteration of Olde Bar, most recently an event venue in the historic Bookbinder’s building, shut its doors this summer.