The quiet hours, when Reading Terminal Market belongs to the regulars
At 8 a.m. sharp, opening time, Pete Shovlin strode into the Reading Terminal Market like a general commanding troops. The meter was running. And Pete had to get to his seat. The same one he has planted himself in nearly every Saturday morning for nearly a half-century. The one from which he presides over a steadfast band of compatriots. The loyal of the loyal that can be called the Saturday Morning Market Regulars.
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At 8 a.m. sharp, opening time, Pete Shovlin strode into the Reading Terminal Market like a general commanding troops.
The meter was running. And Pete had to get to his seat. The same one he has planted himself in nearly every Saturday morning for nearly a half-century. The one from which he presides over a steadfast band of compatriots. The loyal of the loyal that can be called the Saturday Morning Market Regulars.
The psychologist and his son the physics major.
The model train buff and the pointillist painter.
The former district attorney of Philadelphia.
Along with Pete and his lovely wife, Donna, most have been coming to the market every Saturday since long before Center City's revival.
"They are the lifeblood of the market," said Vinnie Iovine, co-owner of Iovine Bros. produce and president of the market's merchants association. Last Saturday was Harvest Festival, so Iovine jumped down from the tractor full of hay he rode down Filbert Street and gave Pete a hug.
He always makes a point to come say hello to Pete and the gang.
"They are the ones that come no matter what," he said.
In the middle of Center City, in the heart of the city's most bustling market, the Saturday regulars' table has the feel of the counter at a small-town diner.
These are the people who cherish the market in the morning. The slow hours, when there are still free stools at the Dutch Eating Place. When the lines at Old City Coffee do not yet wrap around to the Famous 4th Street Cookie House. When the pretzels come fresh out of the oven at Miller's Twist. When the Great Hall is quiet except for the sounds of sizzling grills, stacking trays, and clanking coffee pots. When Pete can get his coffee and joke with the cranky cheese guy, Jack Morgan.
"Nobody in this city knows more about cheese than Jack," Pete will say of the owner of Downtown Cheese. "But he's an ornery cuss, so you got to watch out."
"I am," says Jack.
They sit at their table, talking and laughing, until the first crowds come. Then they leave until next week.
"You go to Mass on Sunday, you go to the terminal on Saturday," Pete said. "It's one of those things where you're committing a mortal sin if you don't go."
Pete, a retired consultant, and Donna, a retired manager at the nuclear medicine department at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, never commit that sin.
They're there every week like clockwork, driving in from Villanova.
As a kid growing up in West Philly, Pete went with his father on market trips. Sawdust covered the floor and animals hung from hooks. Father and son gobbled down buttermilk and cheese and pimento sandwiches, all for a quarter.
When Pete and Donna married, they together fell in love with the market - the food, the banter, the friends they made with the vendors.
"I danced at their weddings, rejoiced at the births, and buried their dead," Donna said.
In time, their Saturday morning trips became much more than just trips to the market, more than anything they could find at Wegmans or Whole Foods.
"There would be a hole without it," Pete said of their market ritual.
Pete holds court while Donna shops.
He'll wave hello to Dick Foley, the model train buff, who's been coming to the market for a half-century too, and is building in his basement a fully operational model of the Reading Railroad in 1950s Philadelphia.
He'll talk fine wine and art with Keith Breitfeller and his husband, Brian Dennis. Artists, they became table regulars about 15 years ago. Three of Keith's paintings now hang in Pete and Donna's house.
He'll exchange good-natured barbs with Brian Simon, the psychologist, who makes the trip from Delaware. Brian's son Jake, 20, the physics major, comes whenever he is on break from Bucknell. Brian sets aside the magazines he gets at his office for other Saturday regulars. Like the back issues of Opera Today and Horse and Rider he had on Saturday for Lynne Abraham, the former district attorney and longtime Saturday regular. She was just back from a trip to France.
"France was a dream," she said, enjoying a cheese danish from the Market Bakery. "But I missed the market."
Back at the table, Pete was growing antsy. The meter was running. The quiet hour was over now.
"We got everything? He asked Donna.
Their bags full, Pete and Donna bid goodbye to their friends - making their way through the growing crowds.
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