The Barclay Pharmacy Corner Is Becoming Restaurant Number Four Within a 15-Minute Walk

"It's all part of our master plan to be able to keep our commute to a 15-minute walk, max," chef Amanda Shulman told The Inquirer when she and Alex Kemp leased the space at 23rd and Pine that became Pine Street Grill. The plan now includes the southeast corner of 18th and Spruce. On Oct. 22, 2026, the couple filed an application with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board for a new restaurant at 1736 Spruce St., the former Barclay Pharmacy, and Shulman confirmed they had signed a lease.

"I saw the space and absolutely fell in love with it," she told The Inquirer. "We're still figuring out the details of what it will become."

The concept is still open. The move itself fits a pattern this intersection has followed for almost a hundred years. At 18th and Spruce, businesses rarely leave. They cross the street.

Four Restaurants, One Walking Radius

Shulman and Kemp, who operate their restaurants through Libbie Loup Hospitality, have opened three permanent restaurants in less than five years, and each one takes a different approach to dining. All of them sit within a few blocks of the couple's Rittenhouse Square home.

There was also a seasonal stop between them. In summer 2024 the couple ran Amourette, an outdoor restaurant in the garden of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, just off the square.

Her Place and the new Spruce Street address are both on the 1700 block, one on Sansom and one on Spruce. My Loup and Pine Street Grill sit farther west, toward 20th and 23rd. Mapped together, the four addresses form a single neighborhood walk.

A Liquor License That Stayed in the Neighborhood

The license on the new application also comes from nearby. According to The Inquirer, it was previously held by the now-closed Le Pain Quotidien at 1423 Walnut St. The application lists Her Place's corporate name.

So a license that once served a café a few blocks east on Walnut is moving to a corner on Spruce. Liquor licenses have made this kind of move at 18th and Spruce before.

The Intersection Where Tenants Cross the Street

In 2019, Hidden City Philadelphia published a history of all four corners of 18th and Spruce. It shows the same habit repeating itself over the decades.

1. 1894, southwest corner. The first four houses on the corner were torn down for the Methodist Episcopal Church of the Covenant, a neo-Gothic stone and stained-glass church designed by Thomas Preston Lonsdale. It was sold to Seventh Day Adventists in 1941 and then to the congregation Beth Zion Beth Israel in 1954. Philadelphia architect Beryl Price redesigned it as a synagogue.
2. 1930s, northeast corner. Pharmacist Bernard Friedman had Barclay Pharmacy custom-built to his design on the corner. It stood next to an A&P grocery in the space that later became Great Scott Market and then Rittenhouse Market. The Inquirer puts the pharmacy's opening at 1939.
3. 1959, two moves at once. Barclay Pharmacy moved across Spruce to 1736, on the southeast corner. Day's Deli, which had started on the northwest corner, moved into the larger space the drugstore left behind. Day's had a liquor license, and by the 1960s it was a late-night hangout.
4. After 1959, northwest corner. The Harvey House, a popular restaurant from South Broad Street, opened where Day's had been and closed within five years. A series of banks followed, then Savoy Cleaners.
5. 1980s onward, northeast corner again. Day's Deli closed in the 1980s. The market next door expanded across the whole northeast corner, and Savoy Cleaners eventually moved from the northwest corner to the northeast.

When Hidden City wrote its history, Starbucks held the northwest corner space where Day's Deli began. The piece joked that it was "only a matter of time" before the coffee shop "bolts across 18th Street for a change of scenery."

Barclay Pharmacy closed in 2023, so the restaurant arrives as a new tenant. It still follows the corner's short-distance pattern. The operators already work here, the license already came from here, and the space is changing hands within a short walk.

What 1736 Spruce Has Already Been

The southeast corner building has the longest record at the intersection. Hidden City dates the earliest deed for the property to 1765. The City of Philadelphia's property record lists the current building as four stories, built in 1855. The Inquirer describes it as a mid-19th-century Italianate townhouse with a distinctive facade.

The building has been a home, a shop with a residence above it, and a pharmacy with apartments above it:

• 1867 to 1887: home of the Wetherill family. It was then sold to a Wanamaker.
• 1924: antiques dealer Arthur Sussel bought the house, turned the first floor into a shop, and lived upstairs with his family. Bea Sussel, his wife, was a member of Beth Zion Beth Israel and gave the synagogue across the street its stained glass windows.
• 1959: Barclay Pharmacy moved into the building's first floor, which Bernard Friedman leased from Sussel. Friedman later bought the whole building and converted the upper floors into apartments, which by the 1960s was a common use for the old Spruce Street townhouses.
• 1974 to 2023: his son, Russell Friedman, ran the pharmacy largely as a one-man operation until it closed.

Inside, the pharmacy hardly changed. Hidden City described a mural on the east wall by Philadelphia artist Kenton Warne Hudson depicting 48 drugs and plants used in medicinal compounds, with vintage Max Factor compacts, tortoiseshell combs and mid-century greeting cards still on the shelves. The pharmacy specialized in dermatological compounding, and Tico, a white Labrador, greeted customers at the door. The Inquirer noted that it remains to be seen which of these features will survive the conversion to a restaurant.

What the Scaffolding on the Facade Is For

Scaffolding covered the facade by the time the lease news broke. The paperwork behind it is older than the restaurant announcement. On May 12, 2026, the Philadelphia Historical Commission's permit log recorded permit CP-2026-002682 as issued for 1736 Spruce St. The permit covers Level I exterior alterations, specifically brick pointing and exterior painting, and is listed with "no change of occupancy/no interior work." The applicant is listed as Gnome Architects, LLC.

It was accepted with conditions. Historical Commission staff will review samples of paint removal, masonry cleaning, masonry cutout and repointing before the work goes ahead. That review applies because the building is listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places as part of the Rittenhouse Fitler historic district, with a designation date of Feb. 8, 1995.

As permitted, the masonry and paint work under the scaffolding is exterior repair to an 1855 facade. Any restaurant fit-out inside is a separate step.

When the Corner Opens Again

The neighborhood site Rittenhouse Ramblings lists the Barclay Pharmacy project as an unnamed concept with an estimated opening in 2027. It calls the address the fourth restaurant after Her Place, My Loup and Pine Street Grill. Until then, the facade work continues on a building that has held one family's shop and residence, then another's pharmacy and apartments, across 260 years of deeds on the same corner.

A Spruce Street building's history and its place on the historic register shape what can change on its facade, as the permit at 1736 shows. If you own or are considering a property in the Rittenhouse Fitler district and want to understand how a building's history and its historic designation affect its future, the Damon Michels Team can walk you through it. Contact Us.