New openings fuel a little treat boom in Graduate Hospital

For years, Graduate Hospital — the Center City neighborhood roughly bounded by South Street and Washington Avenue, and Broad Street and the Schuylkill — has been sorely lacking in places to stop in for a snack, pastry, or ice cream cone.

It didn’t seem to matter: Rittenhouse was so close that residents’ desires for little treats were generally met by walking a couple blocks north, where “little treats,” the culture of which has been surging worldwide, abound. On the 200 block of 20th Street alone, between Walnut and Spruce, you’ll find 1-900-Ice-Cream, which opened in 2022 and sees relentless lines down the block; All Aboard Candy, which opened last year and is one of two places you can buy adorable gummy candies; and Biederman’s, a seafood-centric “appetizing” shop that opened earlier this year.

Now, Grad Hospital is seeing its own treat boom. In recent months, the neighborhood has seen an influx of treat sellers that shows no sign of stopping.

The openings have been concentrated on South Street between 15th and 17th Streets, but other parts of the neighborhood are changing as well.

Winners Ice Cream, Ange Branca’s jacket potato and creamsicle-driven operation Mod Spuds, Sandpiper Cafe (where you can get trendy matcha lattes), and Sweet Mousse (which sells even fancier beverages and mousse cakes) all opened within two blocks of each other on South Street between May and July this year. They are all Asian-owned — a notable aspect of little treat culture, as Asian flavors like matcha and ube have been extremely popular at little treat retailers. (Demand for both ingredients has been so high, both have seen global supply chain shortages.)

The market for little treats, also known as “treatonomics,” is propelled by Gen Z but not at all restricted to that generation, as spending on “pick-me-ups” generally increases in recessions and in uncertain economic conditions, economists have found.

The Grad Hospital boom is powered by nimble operators with no need for the ventilation systems required at most full-service restaurants. Thus, they are able to launch after footing comparatively light construction costs.

“We’re two months in and it’s been awesome,” said Anh Nguyen, the owner of Winners. “Many are saying Grad Hospital needed an ice cream shop, so I’m happy we opened here.”

Nguyen’s clientele consists mostly of neighborhood residents and families. He hopes to attract more customers from outside Grad Hospital. “My aim is to win the block, then win the city. I love being the neighborhood ice cream parlor — somewhere for families to go celebrate and make memories.”

Though Nguyen currently lives in Roxborough, he hopes to move to Grad Hospital. “I’ve fallen in love with Grad Hospital since being here and everyone I’ve met has been so welcoming and encouraging.”

Little treats are massively impacting a neighborhood that, until this year, was stalled in gentrification. Once primarily home to working-class Black residents, Grad Hospital fell into disrepair when the manufacturing industry declined in Philadelphia. The neighborhood gentrified rapidly between the late 1990s and early 2010s due to city tax abatements and proximity to University City and Center City. According to a study by Pew Charitable Trusts, Graduate Hospital experienced the most dramatic changes in racial composition in Philadelphia in the early aughts: “[Graduate Hospital’s] total Black population fell from 7,793 in 2000 to 3,450 in 2014. During the same period, the number of white residents more than tripled in the neighborhood.”

The wave of redevelopment, new construction, and gentrification brought comparatively few small businesses and restaurants. Unlike South Philly and Fishtown, Grad Hospital has no established restaurant corridor.

“Mod Spuds [on the 1400 block of South Street] needed a place that is a fine balance between good traffic, neighborhood-y, and affordable,” said owner Ange Branca, who said that the location was perfect despite (or even because of it) being a “less desirable block.” Its limited kitchen space, which does not allow an exhaust hood, kept her rent down. It was only after Mod Spuds opened that Branca realized she was right on Grad Hospital residents’ commute home from jobs in Center City.

The neighborhood has also beckoned “empanada queen” Jezabel Careaga, who had left as a business owner, but not as a resident, in 2018. Technically, Careaga’s original Argentine bakery, Jezabel’s, was in Fitler Square, but now she is reopening it at 617 S. 24th St., right on the cusp of Grad Hospital. Careaga’s empanadas and alfajores helped define Philly’s little treat scene long before the culture acquired its tagline.

“Graduate Hospital has changed so much since I first came to this neighborhood, but what is really special to me is seeing the generations grow up here,” said Careaga, who has lived in the neighborhood since 2010. “It feels like I’m creating a little piece of the memory I had with my grandmother, right here in my own neighborhood.”

The same children who would stop at her bakery after school are now grown up — some have even asked her for jobs. “And now I’m seeing them with children of their own, stopping by our bake sales with their little ones,” said Careaga. “It makes me so happy to think that the traditions we started years ago can continue with another generation.”