🍦 Our summer picks | Morning Newsletter

Weather-wise, it’ll be a muggy day and not one to be without an umbrella as waves of showers, heavy downpours and thunderstorms are expected.

In many ways, this is the summer we were primed to truly embrace. Our staffers have plenty of thoughts on how you can kick this summer off right, so we turned today’s edition into a summer guide. Be forewarned. Expect all of the cocktails, ice cream, and music to help you get the most out of your season.

In today’s newsletter:

🌭 Restaurants: Reporter Mike Klein dishes on what’s cooking at the Shore.

🌊 Shore: Reporter Amy S. Rosenberg can be your guide to the mood of the moment at the Shore and her curated picks.

🎸 Concerts: Before you make any plans to see a concert, consult our music critic’s Philly-area picks below and his list of the biggest shows at the Shore. But first, we’ll run down the news.

If you see this 🔒 in today’s newsletter, that means we’re highlighting our exclusive journalism. You need to be a subscriber to read these stories.

— Ashley Hoffman (@_AshleyHoffman, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

🎤 Let me pass the mic to Mike Klein for this one:

“This will be a summer best enjoyed outdoors. New this year is Liberty Point, on Penn’s Landing, by far the largest outdoor restaurant ever in the city. (Fourteen hundred seats and all facing the river!) Indoors, Philadelphia now has a bar that Harry Potter would feel right at home at: The Cauldron in Center City allows grown-ups (and families) to use real, working magic wands and make their own flaming/steaming drinks — alcoholic and nonalcoholic.” — Mike Klein

🍔 And there’s nothing like the first burger of the season. Klein, Craig LaBan, and Jillian Wilson went on a burger quest to pick the best. Sink into the 17 best burgers.

🍦 And let me pass the mic to Jillian Wilson, our Things To Do newsletter scribe, for her local picks. “I live close to both Bok Bar and D’Emilio’s Old World Ice Treats, so, they’ll both be frequent summer hangout spots for me. I’ll head to Bok Bar for the skyline views and fun restaurants in residence (this month is Kalaya and I’m so excited) and D’Emilio’s for dessert (have you had the brownie sundae?! You have to try it).”

Amy S. Rosenberg chronicles the conversation at the Shore weekly in her newsletter Down the Shore. In this week’s edition, she takes you behind the scene of her interesting “exit interview” with the owners of their Caribbean and Mediterranean restaurant in Ocean City, 701 Mosaic, exploring the ever-pressing topic of who gets to say who belongs Down the Shore and where.

🏖️ Amy never leaves Long Beach Island without swinging by Surf City’s Boulevard Clams. We have a guide to where to go on LBI including places to cool off like a waterpark or an arcade. Spicy strawberry margarita anyone? To the Long Beach Island guide!

🌊 And spread out at one of our outdoor Shore spots that made our list.

📧 To stay connected with chatter down the Shore, sign up for free.

🍹 Klein also brought you the early word on new restaurants at the Shore. For views: The Kitchen at Caroline’s by the Bay in Somers Point. For buckets of seafood: Topsail Steamer in Sea Isle City. For prepared meals for those nights on the beach: Basilicos Ristorante, also in Sea Isle City. For a yard bar with cornhole and games: The New Root Cellar Tavern in Dorothy. For double-barrel smoked cocktails: Wild Honey Smokehouse & Tavern. And collab alert: Famous 4th Street Cookies and Bassetts Ice Cream are “sandwiching” together to form Famous Cookie Creamery.

To know all of the brews and views, do bookmark his full guide.

Let’s talk baseball. The Phillies are on fire like they haven’t been in years. (They won their ninth straight game Saturday!) Know the powerhouse players. Out: Joe Girardi. In, temporarily: Rob Thomson. Columnist Marcus Hayes lays out the team’s fresh start with this new manager, a relaxed culture and the potential for a new golden era.

🎤 Let me pass the mic to Dan DeLuca for this one:

The concert business is booming again, back in full swing for the first summer since the pandemic began, and the Philadelphia region is full up with outdoor shows in stadiums, amphitheaters, and on the beach.

In South Philly, there’s a slew of sports complex shows that includes Citizen Bank Park dates with Motley Crue and Def Leppard on June 25, Dead & Co on July 10, Elton John on July 15, and Red Hot Chili Peppers on Sept. 3.

At the Linc, Kenny Chesney is June 18, The Weeknd is July 14 and Rammstein is Aug. 31. Other big ones: Phish on the beach in Atlantic City Aug. 5-7. (And at the Mann Center July 19 and 20.) Japanese Breakfast headlines Connor Barwin’s Make The World Better benefit at the Dell Music Center on July 23.

The Chicks are at the newly renamed Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden on July 8, Wu Tang Clan and Nas are there on Sept 8, Pearl Jam plays there Sept. 14. and the Xponential Music Festival sets up at the FMP and adjacent Wiggins Park on Sept. 16-18. And one really big one that’s still Xponential: this year’s Made in America festival is again expected to happen on the Ben Franklin Parkway on Labor Day weekend, but the lineup has yet to be announced. — Dan DeLuca.

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The aforementioned Down the Shore newsletter scribe Amy S. Rosenberg wrote about how the Shore shined in many ways through the pandemic. How many people filled the Shore last summer again?

A) 36.2 million

B) 48.2 million

B) 54.3 million

C) 62.5 million

Find out if you know the answer.

What you can eat at the Wawa Welcome America celebration on July 4th.

AGATHE LINGO

We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Send us your own original anagram to unscramble if you’d like. Email us if you know the answer.

Cheers to Matthew Conte who correctly guessed Friday’s answer: DAWN STALEY. Feel free to contribute your own summer-themed anagram, and we’ll feature the best one.

🎶 The smell of colored plastic baking in the sun. Sweet just like frustration, my senses on the run. 🎶 Send me your favorite song of summer.

👋🏽 I’m back from Colombia and ready for summer in Philly. Today I’m seeing Top Gun: Maverick at the IMAX in Cherry Hill. I’ll take your drive-in movie theater recommendations if you know of any open this summer. Tweet me with your suggestions.