Paper Ephemera

The Philadelphia Restaurant Graveyard

This was originally an updating post on types.pl.

Since moving to Philadelphia in 2022, a number of beloved restaurants I’ve discovered have since closed in my mere years here, so I’m keeping this table as a remembrance of restaurants past.

Specialty Coffee Roasters in Philadelphia

Get your beans here! This is a list of specialty coffee roasters local to Philly that do single-origin light roasts whose coffeeshops are in or close to Centre City. This list is tailored to my preferences: I make coffee with an Aeropress at home, and I enjoy getting pourover coffee when I’m out.

The Designation Sign Design of the MFL

This was originally posted on cohost.

On the Market–Frankford trains of SEPTA in Philadelphia, the designation signs indicating the line and the next stop are very simple 18-panel 3×5-segment displays.

Little Shops in Philadelphia

I’ve previously posted about my favourite ice cream shops in Philadelphia, but there’s a ton of other great little shops to visit. Here’s a few that I’ve really liked, sorted into two categories: used bookstores and vintage/oddities. I’ve excluded all food places, including coffeeshops, roasteries, bakeries, dessert shops, grocers, markets, food trucks, and so on, because there are just too many of them.

Ice Cream Shops in Philadelphia

When I arrived in Philadelphia, I started a Tweet thread of ice cream shops that are or aren’t as good as Rain or Shine back in Vancouver, which was the ice cream place I frequented most often since they have a location on the UBC campus. (I don’t have a thread or a list for ice cream shops in Vancouver, but you really can’t go wrong with Rain or Shine or with Earnest.)

Here I collect a list of the shops that are as good as Rain or Shine, ordered from west to east.

Bridges of Vancouver

For reasons yet fathomable, I’ve decided to cross by foot (almost) all major pedestrian-accessible bridges crossing a body of water in Greater Vancouver. These are, courtesy of this list, as labelled on the following map, and listed as follows, in alphabetical order: