🧢 Philly’s restaurant merchtopia | Morning Newsletter

Welcome to Wednesday, Philly.

Food merch is kitschy, cool, and immensely profitable for local restaurants. Today’s lead story explains how branded merchandise became the hot new fashion trend.

And in the rapidly growing outer areas of Montgomery and Chester Counties, almost all the population growth has benefited Democrats politically — a shift that could help Pennsylvania stay blue in this fall’s election. Find the details in the second installment of The Inquirer’s series on the trends and places to watch in the battleground state.

We’re also cracking open Jersey’s oyster renaissance. Read on for these stories and more.

— Julie Zeglen (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

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Hats bearing cartoon pigs. Mohawk-adorned skull T-shirts. Denim jackets sporting smiley-face patches. Custom-scented bathroom candles. These items are all part of a wave of branded merchandise sold by Philly restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.

🧢 Wearing food merch allows a customer to show off their personality and support their favorite small biz, yes. But on the restauranteur side, it’s also a way to widen super-thin margins, market their work, and build an “all-consuming” business, as one owner put it.

🧢 Philadelphia restaurant merch stands out amid a national trend both because it tends to be created in partnership with local artists, and because much of it is purposefully quirky (like Philly itself, you might say). Yet the goal for some is to become a “timeless” brand.

🧢 “We need to have a good aesthetic in the shop, good food, kind employees, and merch,” the owner of Middle Child, which recently did a 30-item drop of tees honoring their seasonal BLT, told The Inquirer. “I think people just expect a lot more out of a restaurant now than they used to.”

Reporters Hira Qureshi and Beatrice Forman explain why we are what we eat, and wear.

The increasingly blue Philadelphia suburbs could play a big role in deciding the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. In Chester County’s East Brandywine, for instance, a growing Democratic base flipped how the township voted from 2012 to 2020.

The shift came at roughly the same time its population grew by 44% as people moved to the once-rural community for lower housing prices, more open space, and quiet. Those new residents have made East Brandywine wealthier and more diverse.

“It’s probably a township where there wasn’t a ton of disagreement on things in the past,” said one Democrat who grew up there and moved back as an adult. “But now there’s lots of different types of people from different backgrounds.”

Politics reporter Katie Bernard and data reporter Aseem Shukla have the story.

New Jersey oyster farms have exploded in number in the past few decades, from just one in 1997 to 41 today. While that count is still relatively small compared to other coastal states, the quality of the local aquaculture’s output is the real pearl.

The Inquirer food team’s new series cracks into the Jersey oyster renaissance:

🦪 Tasting the ocean: This is the Jersey shellfish-farming boom deep dive you never knew you needed, with insight into all that goes into producing a world-class harvest.

🦪 Best in sea: Saltiness, yes, but creaminess, minerality, sweetness? Restaurant critic Craig LaBan explains how to judge an oyster’s taste while sharing his top six Jersey oysters — and most importantly, where to find them in Philly.

🦪 Don’t be shellfish: Learn how a state environmental program has recycled 100 tons of shells and restored vital habitats for oyster growth.

🦪 Aw, shucks: Meet Gary McCready, one of the most prolific and beloved shuckers in Philadelphia.

🦪 Mollusk the question: Do oysters count as meat? Here’s why some vegans make an exception for eating them.

🦪 The world is your ... Remember that one oyster farm operating in Jersey in 1997? Cape May Salt is in a moment of major transition. Here’s what’s next for the oyster that revived the local industry.

Montgomery County will be the first in the region to dispense which type of item for free at all county-owned facilities, including courthouses and public parks?

A) School supplies

B) Snacks

C) Menstrual products

D) Sports equipment

Think you know? Check your answer.

🚲 Riding with: Black Girl Joy Bike Ride, the cycling group for Black women that goes at its own pace.

🌹 Rooting for: Charles L., the Philly guy in the new “Golden Bachelorette” cast.

☕ Grabbing: Coffee from one of these Shore shops, from Atlantic City to Cape May.

Cherry Hill native Dominic Sessa of The Holdovers fame may play this fellow New Jerseyan in an upcoming biopic.

HANNY OBDURATION

Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Lawrence Radine, who solved Tuesday’s anagram: Bud Light. The beer brand is giving away super-limited-edition “Philly Philly” bottles in honor of Nick Foles’ retirement.

🌊 One last wavy thing: At the 2024 South Jersey Lifeguard Championships, Avalon squeaked out a last-second win over reigning champ Brigantine to take the trophy back to Seven Mile Island.

Hope you have a great day. I’ll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place.

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