The Ye Olde Ironmaster Restaurant, located at 1319 Lancaster Ave., Reading, Pennsylvania, was a beloved Berks County landmark housed in a historic farmhouse built in the late 1700s by Christian Bechtel. The property, part of a 180-acre homestead bordering the present day Shillington [...]
In 1946, Sebastian Ninfo, born August 17, 1899, in Italy, who immigrated to America in 1916, purchased the property at 401 North 10th Street in Reading, Pennsylvania, and later opened the Stardust Luncheonette. The restaurant quickly became a neighborhood favorite, drawing long lines—especially [...]
Pappy's Pizza was a restaurant chain based out of Newark, Delaware...the territory ran from Ohio to Delaware and Allentown to Maryland. The chain was owned by a man and his two sons; one of the son's names was Mark Balick. Pappy's Pizza in [...]
The Temple Inn was erected in 1928 by Morris Sassaman as Penn Temple Hotel at the intersection of Kutztown Road and Fifth Street Highway. It had 25 rooms and two banquet halls. Sassaman sold the facility in 1936. A bar, which operated on [...]
The Sho-Boat was located at the northwest corner of Schuylkill Ave. and Blair Ave., Reading. The brick hotel building dated from 1893 when erected by Augustus Resh who dubbed his property Somerset Park. An 1896 map shows a very large square structure north [...]
A & W Root Beer, 3801 Perkiomen Ave. opened in 1964. According to a 1965 directory, Leroy A. and A. Jean Burkholder opened the place, which immediately created a sensation. Young ladies clad in Scotch-plaid super-short mini-skirts delivered your order on a specially [...]
The Crystal Palace Hot Wiener Shop was a downtown Reading dining landmark for 82 years. Frank Pestlikes, a native of Rhodes, Greece, started the business at 744 Penn Street in a part of what had once been the Crystal Palace Hotel and Market [...]
