In the holiday season, most folks have two long lists: a shopping list of gifts to buy; and a calendar chockablock with social gatherings.
In Philly, you can eat, shop and be merry, all under the historic roof of the Wetherill Mansion at 251 S. 18th St., home to both Rittenhouse Tavern, a cushy, chic and creative restaurant, and the Philadelphia Art Alliance, where visitors can both admire and purchase contemporary crafts and designs.
The Art Alliance, located toward the street side of the building, is a bright, hip space. It’s a great place to find one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted jewelry and textiles — after all, one can never have too many decorative pillows — for that particular someone on your list.
As for the restaurant, it’s more salon than tavern. I especially appreciate the EB Manhattan ($13), a sleek and satiny concoction of Rittenhouse rye, with both sweet and dry vermouth.
Enjoy your holiday get-together with friends in either the lounge, warmed by a Carrera marble fireplace that graced the original mansion, or enjoy a repast in the dining room. (Note the mural of geese in flight, painted by Richard Blossom Farley in the 1920s.) In warmer months, guests can dine outdoors on a cobblestone patio.
The menu by chef Nick Elmi, an alum of the old Le Bec Fin, lists such high-touch dishes as Scotch eggs wrapped in pork farce (that’s chopped and seasoned piggy). Entrees include crispy striped bass with cabbage, barley and hibiscus ($27) and hay-roasted mallard breast with smoked white yam, celery and crab apple ($31). Each Sunday, Rittenhouse serves up a regional treat, an Amish-style supper of fried chicken ($19).
Open for dinner, Tuesday through Sunday. Brunch Saturday and Sunday. Closed on Monday.
It isn’t even Halloween yet but more than half of us – 51 percent – have already mapped out our holiday shopping plans this year, making lists for gifts we will buy with cash we already have socked away, according to Accenture’s annual study.
The Accenture Holiday Shopping Survey predicts consumers will spend an average of $582 on holiday shopping this season; 23 percent will part with more than $750. Half (52 percent) expect to increase their spending by $250 or more.
A mere 5 percent of us will be extravagant — and only 8 percent expect to splurge.
What I find fascinating is the notion of showrooming. That is the term for finding a product in a bricks-and-mortar store, searching online for the best price and then making the purchase electronically. According to the study, 56 percent of shoppers are planning that strategy — and 27 percent of them say they would likely make the purchase online, using their smartphone or tablet, while they are still out shopping.
That’s not welcome news for the folks who actually stock the shelves and explain products to shoppers, only to have them save a few bucks buying online from merchants who have fewer buildings to maintain — and fewer human beings to pay.
Still that yearning to dash to the store hasn’t faded away altogether. This year’s survey also found that more consumers — 53 percent — plan to shop on Black Friday, sharply reversing a three-year trend. In 2011, the survey concluded that only 44 percent of respondents were interested in shopping on Black Friday, down from 47 percent in 2010 and 52 percent in 2009.