Manna Bakery opened its first storefront at 110 W. Berks St. on Thursday, July 30, 2026, in the space Essen Bakery left empty. With the bakery open, the short block under the Berks station of the Market-Frankford Line now has businesses that hand the day off to each other. The bakery runs the mornings and closes at 3 p.m. Sacred Vice Brewing, two doors down at 120 W. Berks, opens at 4 p.m. on most weekdays and runs into the night. The storefront directly under the station is set to become a New Orleans sandwich shop. One block of Berks Street between Front and 2nd is close to covering the full day on its own, and the gaps that remain fall on specific days.
The morning shift went dark for most of a year, then came back
The Berks Street address belonged to Essen Bakery until its shops shut down on May 31, 2025. Essen confirmed in November 2025 that neither location would reopen, as the Inquirer reported. For a little over a year, the block's daytime anchor was gone.
Saif Manna moved in. Before the storefront, Manna Bakery spent five years as pop-ups and farmers market tables at Rittenhouse, Headhouse and Clark Park, and Manna baked overnight in the kitchen at Char Pizza until he outgrew it, according to the Inquirer's opening story. He calls it a third-culture bakery focused on Palestinian and Levantine baking, and he said he would keep his farmers market stops.
The weekday case is stocked with his signatures: manakeesh, chicken sumac buns, fatayer, cardamom buns, Basque cheesecake, seasonal cakes, and two chocolate chunk cookies, one with pistachio and one with extra-brown butter. Weekends bring a broader selection. Ka'ak al-Quds, the long sesame Jerusalem bagels, hang from hooks behind the counter. Coffee comes from Seekers Coffee in Princeton, with drinks flavored with rose, cardamom, tahini, dates and saffron, and Manna's grandmother's orange blossom lemonade is on the menu too.
The room was built to keep people around. It has a window into the kitchen, warm stone finishes, a small souk stocked with Levantine spices and pantry goods, and a rear room set aside for future baking workshops, classes and private events. Manna told the Inquirer that supper clubs and dinner nights are long-term plans that will wait until the bakery is firmly established.
Launch coverage listed hours of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. The bakery's Visit Us page now lists weekend hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a 3 p.m. close on Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday morning now start an hour later than the opening announcement said.
The 3 p.m. handoff
Manna closes at 3. On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Sacred Vice Brewing's Berks taproom opens at 4. The brewery opened this expanded location in March 2024, Billy Penn reported, so it was already open when the block lost its bakery. Billy Penn described a lineup on tap that included a cream ale, a double IPA, a hazy IPA, a saison and a West Coast IPA.
This is the week on the block's two open storefronts, with Luna at the Luxe added. Luna sits a short walk away at 1705 N. American St., and it fills the hours the other two leave open.
| Day | Manna Bakery, 110 W. Berks | Sacred Vice, 120 W. Berks | Luna at the Luxe, 1705 N. American |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Closed | 4 to 10 p.m. | 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Tuesday | Closed | Closed | 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Wednesday | Closed | 4 to 10 p.m. | 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Thursday | Closes 3 p.m. | 4 to 11 p.m. | 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Friday | Closes 3 p.m. | 4 p.m. to midnight | 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Saturday | 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Noon to 7 p.m. | 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Sunday | 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. | 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. | 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
Hours are as posted by each business in October 2026. Sacred Vice notes that Saturday can close early, and Manna's page does not list a Thursday and Friday opening time.
Read across the rows and the relay shows. Thursday through Sunday, Berks Street covers the day alone, with a one-hour gap on the weekdays between the bakery's close and the taproom's open. Sunday overlaps, because the taproom opens at 9:30 a.m. while the bakery is still selling. Monday through Wednesday the bakery is dark, and Luna's daytime hours on American Street become the closest morning option. Tuesday is the one day when nothing on the 100 block of West Berks is open.
Sunday is when the two shifts overlap on purpose
On Sunday, October 11, Sacred Vice opens for the Eagles' 9:30 a.m. kickoff against the Jaguars and hosts a Manna Bakery pop-up. The event listing describes harissa mushroom cheese fatayer, za'atar and labneh manakeesh, and Jerusalem bagels, with the pop-up running from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. For one morning, the bakery's food is served inside the brewery's room on the brewery's schedule.
The rest of the taproom's October calendar, as posted on its events page:
- Thursday, October 15, 7 p.m.: Trivial Beer-suit trivia night
- Saturday, October 17: a DJ night
- Sunday, October 18, 1 p.m.: Eagles vs. Panthers watch event
- Thursday, October 22: Pop-tones
- Monday, October 26, 8:15 p.m.: Eagles vs. Cowboys watch event
- Tuesday, October 27: a hobbit-themed role-play event
The Cowboys game falls on a Monday night, when the taproom's posted hours end at 10 p.m. The October 27 event falls on a Tuesday, the day the taproom is normally closed. For those two nights, the event calendar overrides the weekly hours.
The storefront under the station is the next piece
The 102 W. Berks storefront, directly beneath the station, is the planned home of Philly Po'Boy. Brothers Chris and Greg Lynch are behind it. Chris spent years cooking in New Orleans, and Greg's Philadelphia background includes Starr Restaurants and LMNO. The Inquirer's fall 2026 forecast, published September 9, still listed it as forthcoming. The planned menu includes powdered-sugar beignets, gumbo, and po'boys stuffed with fried shrimp, oysters or roast beef "debris," plus fries, Creole potato salad and café au lait made with coffee from Applied Arts in New Orleans. The shop's own site still says "Opening 2026" and hasn't posted hours.
That makes the shop's eventual schedule the open question on the block. The weekday gap in the table above runs Monday through Wednesday, when the bakery is closed and the taproom opens at 4 or not at all. A sandwich and beignet counter is the kind of business that could fill those hours. How much of the gap it covers depends on hours the Lynch brothers haven't announced.
Where the relay continues off the block
Luna at the Luxe fills in from American Street. Sarah Levine-Varisano moved Luna Cafe into a 900-square-foot space inside The Luxe and added a 30-seat walnut bar under a trellis, plus a courtyard that seats 40 to 50, as WhatNow Philadelphia reported. The breakfast, lunch and espresso menu stayed. Dinner was added Thursday through Saturday, with artisan-style pizzas, salads, small bites, cocktails, a wine list, and the return of Luna's natural-wine bottle shop and wine club. Luna's site now promotes coffee, pizza, cocktails and wine. Those late Thursday through Saturday hours line up with the nights Sacred Vice stays open latest.
Café Tinto at 1701 N. Front St. appeared in City Cast Philly's June 2026 openings, serving Colombian food and coffee with empanadas and guayaba pastries. It sits on Front Street near Luna's American Street address, and its hours weren't part of the published coverage.
For dinner, Char Pizza at 310 W. Master St. closes the loop. It's the kitchen where Manna baked overnight before he had his own. Craig LaBan's Inquirer review singled out Viraj Thomas's heat-blistered crust and the New School Tomato Pie. Its site posts evening hours of 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday.
Put together, a Saturday on these few blocks can start at Manna at 8 a.m., pick up at Sacred Vice at noon, and end at Luna or Char after dark. Before July 30, the first stop on that route was an empty storefront.
At Conchetta Park, we keep track of how blocks like this one fill in, down to which storefronts open on which days and what's planned under the L. If you'd like to talk through what's changing on the streets around Berks station, or anywhere else in Olde Kensington, Let's Connect.
