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I put dt San Francisco with dt Chicago and Center City a notch below. Center City is great in many ways but 2 of the biggest catagories, shopping and dining and imo it's well below them. Especially shopping. It's just average for being a top downtown. King of Prussia Mall is the top shopping destination in the Philadelphia area.
I put dt San Francisco with dt Chicago and Center City a notch below. Center City is great in many ways but 2 of the biggest catagories, shopping and dining and imo it's well below them. Especially shopping. It's just average for being a top downtown. King of Prussia Mall is the top shopping destination in the Philadelphia area.
For the shopping scene, I think most would concede that Philly is not competitive with SF or Chicago (only for high end international brands, which I know is fetishized in this forum; Philly's indie shopping community is fantastic).
As for dining, I think it's much more competitive than you may realize. I understand that a city like SF/Chicago have more Michelin ranked restaurants (they actually haven't expanded their ranking to Philly, so it's difficult to adequately compare), but dining is easily one of the most exciting and phenomenal aspects about Center City. I think especially for a city like SF that is considerably more expensive, there are fewer start-up chefs that can take financial risks and be present in the higher cost real estate areas.
With Philly's much more manageable COL, it makes for a very vibrant and constantly evolving culinary scene.
For the shopping scene, I think most would concede that Philly is not competitive with SF or Chicago (only for high end international brands, which I know is fetishized in this forum; Philly's indie shopping community is fantastic).
As for dining, I think it's much more competitive than you may realize. I understand that a city like SF/Chicago have more Michelin ranked restaurants (they actually haven't expanded their ranking to Philly, so it's difficult to adequately compare), but dining is easily one of the most exciting and phenomenal aspects about Center City. I think especially for a city like SF that is considerably more expensive, there are fewer start-up chefs that can take financial risks and be present in the higher cost real estate areas.
With Philly's much more manageable COL, it makes for a very vibrant and constantly evolving culinary scene.
agree Philly has really continued to improve on the restaurant scene. SF is a notch above though to me was a better eating city ten years ago. DT today Philly may be equal potentially better if limited to DT actually
retail is the biggest difference to me of which SF has a lot more
Philly probably has more arts and museums, definitely more history DT
I also think its actually more active today day/evening/night then DT SF actually. further afield SF would be better in this regrd
Yeah, Center City is pretty strong in terms of dining. A notch below downtown SF, but one of the strongest dining scenes in America (probably in the top half dozen U.S. cities or so).
It appears Center City has a greater urbanic integration in its downtown especially residential in comparison to Downtown SF.
In Philadelphia the old neighborhoods,historic monuments,churches, squares/pocket parks, and museums were there first and then the hotels, condos,office towers, were sprinkled in later during the 20th century.
Downtown SF looks much more regimented. The office district is here ,Union square is there,Chinatown that way,Tenderloin all seem to be fairly well-defined.
Overall SF seems to have greater capacity in many metrics e.g., shopping, office, tourism etc but Philadelphias 18th century human scale layout perhaps makes it seem even more vibrant than bigger downtowns.
Yeah, Center City is pretty strong in terms of dining. A notch below downtown SF, but one of the strongest dining scenes in America (probably in the top half dozen U.S. cities or so).
Are you all including recent Philly dining destinations, like East Passyunk, when you refer to CC dining overall?
Yes, Philly was born during the colonial era, but no photos rainrock posted were in the designated colonial part of the city. San Francisco was virtually destroyed in 1903 so of course it's "newer".
Yes, Philly was born during the colonial era, but no photos rainrock posted were in the designated colonial part of the city. San Francisco was virtually destroyed in 1903 so of course it's "newer".
Regarding food, I don't know if SF is a notch above Philly or not, so if folks who have dined regularly in each city believe so, I won't argue. I do know that after 5 years in Center City, there are still some restaurants we had trouble finding time to get to, let alone trying to return to the ones we really enjoyed. And we've seen that a number of restaurants that serve only so-so food here don't last long, given the quality of the competition.
One thing that perhaps sets Philly part, however, are the number and quality of BYOB restaurants. In Houston, the handful of byo's were not bad but not of the highest quality, and they charged corkage fees of $5-6/person/bottle. In Philly, it is possible to have an amazing dinner with a great chef and save the $50+ wine cost (plus tax & tip), sans corkage. When we first visited, we wondered why couples were walking around at night carrying bottles of wine. Now we're among them.
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