{"id":469873,"date":"2025-12-25T02:21:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T02:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469873\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T02:21:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T02:21:19","slug":"why-these-philly-restaurants-are-staying-open-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469873\/","title":{"rendered":"Why these Philly restaurants are staying open for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Envision Christmas dinner: the table set with the \u201cfancy\u201d silverware, porcelain plates and candles to mark the occasion. In the center sits your grandma\u2019s signature dish \u2014 a decadent roast beef. The sides are aplenty: potatoes au gratin, crispy Brussels sprouts, and for dessert, homemade Christmas cookies.\n<\/p>\n

While a version of this dinner can be found in many family homes citywide, not every Philadelphian is gearing up for a home-cooked meal on the 25th. For many, the holidays are the perfect time to dine out, and restaurants around the city are prepping for the occasion.\n<\/p>\n

Tyler Akin is the chef partner at Bastia<\/a>, a cozy restaurant in the Anna & Bel<\/a> hotel in Fishtown. For months, his team has been envisioning menu ideas for the Christmas dinner shift. Now, it\u2019s time to execute.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a hotel restaurant that needs to operate 365 days a year,\u201d Akin said. \u201cWe\u2019re a seven-day-a-week restaurant, so we don\u2019t have the luxury of getting ahead of it. We\u2019ll start prepping in earnest for those special offerings, probably a couple days before Christmas.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

From 1 to 7 p.m. Christmas Day, Bastia is offering a $65 holiday supper in addition to their \u00e1 la carte menu. This includes a ham glazed with chestnut honey, collard greens, saffron-infused mashed potatoes, mac and cheese cacio e pepe-style, panettone bread pudding and more.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strive every day to create an environment that feels like a home away from home,\u201d Akin said. \u201cFor people, we try to take care of our guests in a way that feels really thoughtful. And you know you\u2019re in our house when you\u2019re dining with us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take that really seriously,\u201d he added. \u201cIf our hospitality is a 10 out of 10 on every other day of the year, we aim to make it an 11 out of 10 on a day like Christmas.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Working Christmas is actually a rite of passage for certain restaurateurs.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe usually call it our Super Bowl,\u201d said Kevin Fu, Dim Sum House\u2019s<\/a> front-of-house manager. \u201cIt is one of, if not the, busiest days of the year.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Dining out at a Chinese restaurant on the holidays is a strong tradition for many diners. While \u201cold school\u201d Jewish patrons are aplenty, Fu noted that the restaurant has a wide variety of guests walking in \u2014 from college students who didn\u2019t fly home for break to locals just wanting something easy. At this point, Fu is a pro at the Christmas shift. He\u2019s worked it for over a decade.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a little bit off the beaten path from Chinatown, but Chinatown during Christmas is very bustling,\u201d Fu said. \u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of activity there. There\u2019s a lot of people going in, a lot of people ordering food, and ordering takeout, things like that. So Chinatown at this time, Christmas time, will actually be very, very packed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Henry Chow, the general manager of Sang Kee in Chinatown<\/a>, also dubbed Christmas his Super Bowl.
\n\"PekingPeking duck meal from Sang Kee (Courtesy of Henry Chow)\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s stressful, and there\u2019s a lot of pressure, and there\u2019s a lot of prep involved,\u201d Chow said. \u201cBut there\u2019s also a lot of pride, because our staff knows how to operate at a really, really high level when there\u2019s a ton of volume and there\u2019s a ton of pressure.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you know it\u2019s your Super Bowl, you\u2019re kind of playing your best,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":469874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,44679,40808,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-469873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-christmas","10":"tag-holiday-season","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115777823961020199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}