The Same Stretch of Frankford Avenue Is Building New and Recycling Old This Fall

"It's named after a Victorian curio cabinet. It'll be full of a rather large osteology collection that I personally own, which is very rare skulls, and interesting objects from all over the world, kind of like a museum bar. I think it'll go well with the artistic nature of Fishtown."

That's Troy Timpel, the tattoo artist behind Villain Arts, describing Philly Curio, the bar he's softly opening in October at 2240 Frankford Ave. Timpel spent three decades in the tattoo industry before deciding his skull collection needed a home with a liquor license. The building itself is worth pausing on before you even get to the rattlesnake small plates. It's a brand new four-story, six-unit structure designed by Mt. Alto Design + Drafting, and it replaced a three-story building that had stood there since before the neighborhood's current wave of attention. Curio isn't filling an empty storefront. It's occupying ground-floor commercial space that didn't exist a few years ago, built under apartments that didn't exist either.

A few blocks south, on the same avenue, the opposite story is happening at the same time.

Two Different Kinds of New

At 1832 Frankford Ave, chef Jay Ho of Mei Mei is opening Kato this fall, built around the Taiwanese cooking he grew up with, filled out with Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese influences. Kato isn't new construction. It's taking over the old Izakaya Fishtown space, keeping the front bar and converting the former sushi counter into seating that can double as a private dining area. One restaurant is closing so another can open in its exact footprint.

That's the distinction a citywide restaurant roundup won't draw out for you, because it doesn't matter if you're scanning openings across the whole city. It matters if you live on this specific stretch of Frankford Avenue and you're trying to read whether the corridor is still expanding or just cycling through concepts in the same handful of buildings. This fall, it's doing both, block by block.

Here's the corridor as it stands right now:

Adda is the clearest example of the new-tenant side of the ledger. It's the Philadelphia outpost of Unapologetic Foods, the New York group behind Dhamaka and Semma, bringing regional Indian dishes that push past the usual Indian American menu. The space at 1700 Frankford sits across from the neighborhood post office, a stretch that's seen steady turnover but no new buildings. Adda isn't adding square footage to the corridor. It's just the next occupant.

What "October" Actually Means Here

If you've been tracking Adda's opening, you've been tracking it for a while. It was originally expected in fall 2025. It's now targeting October 2026, a full year past the original estimate. Curio has its own version of this. Back in February, the plan was a March opening. It's now aiming for October too, seven months later than first announced.

Neither of these is a knock on the operators. Buildouts run long, health inspections take the time they take, and a bar built around a private taxidermy collection probably has a few more moving parts than a standard buildout. But if you live here and you're the type to plan a birthday dinner around a soft-opening announcement, the pattern is worth knowing. Treat any "opening this fall" claim on this stretch of Frankford Avenue as a floor, not a date. Add a season and you'll usually land closer to right.

What You Can Actually Do This Week

While all of that plays out, the neighborhood's regular rhythm hasn't paused for the newcomers. Fishtown Taps runs every Tuesday from 5 to 7 p.m. through September 29, with $5 beers, $6 wines, and $7 cocktails at participating bars and restaurants across the neighborhood. It's run by the Fishtown District, the same group that's been quietly shepherding this stretch of Frankford Avenue through its last decade of turnover, and it's the easiest way to spend a Tuesday sampling what the corridor already has without waiting on a single one of the October openings.

If you want a preview of the scale contrast happening on this street, Top Dog Cocktails is worth watching for a different reason than the food press has given it. Ken Smuckler's cocktail company is opening a flagship at 2012 Frankford Ave that clocks in at 350 square feet, which the Inquirer's own restaurant coverage has called arguably the smallest bar in the neighborhood. It'll run a 15-seat bar with a two-turntable DJ station, built around a vinyl-listening-room concept borrowed from Japanese jazz kissas. So on the same street where a brand new building went up to make room for a skull collection, the newest cocktail bar is intentionally staying tiny. That's not a contradiction. It's a corridor with room for both kinds of ambition.

And if you just want something to eat without waiting for any of it, Call Your Mother's Fishtown location at 1500 Frankford Ave is already open, part of the Washington-based bagel chain's three-location push into Philadelphia. Bagel sandwiches, schmears, and deli specials, no soft-opening delay to track.

What This Means If You Already Live Here

The easy version of this story is a list: five new spots, here's what they serve, go try them. That version has already been written, by the Inquirer, by Hoodline, by half a dozen citywide food blogs tracking Philadelphia's fall restaurant forecast. None of them are wrong. They're just not writing for someone who walks this specific stretch of Frankford Avenue on the way to the Girard stop.

For that reader, the actual news is simpler and more useful. This particular run of Frankford Avenue, from Call Your Mother at 1500 up to Curio at 2240, is short enough to walk end to end in less time than it takes to get seated at most of these places once they open. And it's doing two things simultaneously that are easy to mistake for the same thing. New construction is adding commercial space that didn't exist before, the kind that comes with residential units stacked on top and a design firm's name attached to the permit. Turnover is filling existing space with new operators, the kind where the address stays the same and only the sign changes. Curio and Adda are both new to you. Only one of them is new to the building.

If you're trying to read what's actually happening to your neighborhood's main commercial street, that distinction matters more than the restaurant count. A corridor that's only turning over existing storefronts is a corridor that's topped out. A corridor that's only adding new buildings is one that hasn't found its footing yet. Frankford Avenue this fall is doing both at once, within walking distance of itself, which is a decent sign that the street still has room to change without needing to be entirely rebuilt to do it.

Whenever the next wave of storefronts turns over or the next empty lot gets a permit, that's a conversation worth having with someone who's watching the whole street, not just one listing on it. If you're curious what any of this means for your own corner of Fishtown, the Liz Clark Team is always up for that conversation. Let's Meet.