Philip Korshak returns to South Philly. This time, bagels aren’t on the menu

Philip Korshak, the poet-baker who left town after closing his cult favorite Korshak Bagels 2½ years ago, plans to return to South Philadelphia this spring with a new, deliberately modest venture:

Korshak Picnic Provisions will be a corner shop built around grilled hot dogs, house-made sourdough biscuits, and the idea that food is community.

“If I had to model this place after something, it’s Mr. Hooper’s store on Sesame Street,” Korshak said. “The weird little corner shop that’s always there.”

It’s a former animal hospital at the southeast corner of 13th and Reed Streets, across from the old Faragalli’s Bakery and Columbus Square Park. He is targeting a May opening.

Korshak impressed both the New York Times and Bon Appétit with his bagel shop, which opened in May 2021 at 10th and Morris Streets. But success came at a price. When he closed it in September 2023, he cited financial and personal strain.

The shop’s popularity brought pressures that clashed with his ideals. Korshak resisted automation and expansion, wary of becoming something other than a neighborhood bakery. His staff was one of the first in the city to unionize at an independent cafe. (Korshak voluntarily recognized the union.)

“The staff would prefer to continue,” he wrote in his farewell letter, “but the changes to the process in exchange for efficiency … are not changes I think … are on brand for Korshak Bagels.”

He also wrote that the shop “simply can’t function economically. And provide a living wage. And work/life balance. And reasonable prices.”

After closing Korshak’s Bagels, Korshak first lived in Seattle but relocated to Austin, Texas — his previous stop before Philadelphia. He had no real plans other than working on a memoir and “spinning my wheels,” he said.

Then the phone rang last fall. It was Pat Duffy, a friend who owned the building where Korshak used to take his pet cat for veterinary care. “He said, ‘I’ve got this spot. The neighborhood misses you. It could use your vibe,’” Korshak said.

Korshak initially demurred. “I told him I wasn’t in town and I wasn’t ‘doing the thing’ anymore,” he said. “But just to be thought of — in that world of absurdity and hope — meant everything to me.”

Duffy walked him through the space over FaceTime. The building, which had been outfitted to become a takeout bakery, had little more than a plumbed floor and sinks. There was no ventilation hood or even potential for a sprawling production line.

Which was exactly what intrigued Korshak.

“What I already knew how to do wasn’t that interesting to me anymore,” he said. “What I don’t know yet, that’s compelling.” He moved back to Philadelphia on Dec. 20, settling in Conshohocken.

The idea for a picnic provisions shop, anchored by hot dogs, came quickly. The corner sits near a bike path, a dog run, a playground, and softball fields. Korshak imagined it as a rendezvous point before or after the park: a place to grab a soda, a cookie, a sourdough biscuit with honey from Green Meadow Farm, or a couple of hot dogs “because dinner’s in a couple hours.”

“I’m an old guy,” the Brooklyn-born Korshak, 58, said. “I’ve had a lot of hot dogs and a lot of picnics. I like both.”

Korshak’s reasoning is more philosophical than nostalgic. “The hot dog appealed to me because it can’t really be fetishized,” he said. “You can’t put it on a ‘best of’ list in any meaningful way. It’s ubiquitous. It transcends nationality. For me, food is the connector — it’s not the end in itself. A hot dog almost refuses to be the end in itself. It’s silly, fun, quick.”

Korshak Picnic Provisions will offer four styles of dogs, all grilled: a standard beef or vegan dog with mustard, relish, onion, or kraut; a Coney-style dog with chili, cheese, and onions (with vegan chili available); a Chicago dog with traditional through-the-garden accoutrements on a poppy-seed bun; and a Pacific Northwest dog topped with cream cheese, fish-sauce ketchup, and cabbage. Though he has not yet selected a supplier, he plans to use all-beef dogs.

He plans to source buns from Mighty Bread Co., around the corner, shifting away from the labor-intensive, in-house production that defined Korshak Bagels. “It’s not about the hot dog I can make — it’s about what happens when we work together,” he said. “I love baking, but I’m not interested in running big production again.”

Beyond hot dogs, Picnic Provisions will carry crisps, crackers, jams, honeys, sodas, candy, and seasonal produce. Korshak will keep much of the product line local. He said he is talking to Rhonda Saltzman of Second Daughter Artisanal Bakery and Carol Ha of Okie Dokie Donuts about stocking some of their products. He also envisions stocking non-edible picnic goods — kites, blankets, quilts — reinforcing the shop’s central metaphor.

There will be baking, just not at former volumes. Helen Mirren, his pet name for his long-ferment starter, will inform a sourdough biscuit and a sourdough-spiked cinnamon roll. (Korshak has been testing at the former Conshohocken Bakery, run by longtime friend Danny DiGiampietro, who hosted his first bagel pop-ups.)

This time around, he says, the sense of risk is different.

“It’s all exciting to me,” he said of the new venture, which will have three employees. “The only thing that scares me is if this becomes bigger than it’s intended to be — but I don’t think it will.”

The goal, he said, is durability rather than buzz. “A friend of mine talks about being ‘hot.’ You can only be hot for so long. After that, you’re judged against whether you were hot or not. But the things people truly love aren’t hot — they’re established. They become part of the common language.”

“I’ve been around,” Korshak said. “Philly doesn’t exist anywhere else. The people here are the reason it’s the way it is. It’s unlike anywhere.”

He said he found it “unbelievable” that his last name means something positive to Philadelphians. “How do you not keep trying to do something worthy of that?” he asked. “The goal isn’t accolades. It’s helping someone get through their day a little better — even if you never know about it.”

Sounding more poet than proprietor, he returned to the idea that first drew him back: movement.

“I’m incredibly lucky,” he said. “And if you’re not moving forward, you’re not moving at all.”