Why Narberth Got Two New Restaurants Before Gladwyne Could Agree on a Pharmacy

If you've driven through Gladwyne this year, you've probably noticed the shuttered storefront that used to be Gladwyne Market, and maybe caught wind of the renderings floating around the Civic Association's Facebook page. If you've been through Narberth, you've probably already eaten at one of two new restaurants that opened within a month of each other. Both towns sit inside the same patchwork of governance that makes up Lower Merion. Both had a familiar local business close and something new move in. And yet one town has spent eight months in community meetings and, as of this summer, still hadn't filed a single application with the township, while the other went from empty storefront to full dining room in a matter of weeks.

That gap is worth understanding, because it isn't really about money. Gladwyne has more capital behind its changes than almost any downtown project in the region. Narberth's two openings involved nothing more exotic than a signed lease. The difference is in how many people have to say yes before something can open.

The Eight-Month Meeting

The short version of the Gladwyne Square story: design firm Haldon House, run by Gladwyne native Andre Golsorkhi and his wife Autumn Oser, is working with billionaire Jeff Yass and his wife Janine to remake the village center at Youngs Ford and Righters Mill Roads. The Yasses and Haldon House have spent more than $15 million acquiring the former Gladwyne Market building, the Village Shoppes, a residential lot on Youngs Ford Road, and the Gladwyne Post Office property, and they've leased the space that used to house OMG Hair Salon. Both the market and the salon closed after the acquisitions, which is part of why the project has been watched so closely.

The plan was unveiled to a packed school auditorium on January 8. About four months later, on May 18, Golsorkhi and Oser came back to the Gladwyne Civic Association with a scaled-back version: fewer new buildings, more green space, a more subdued design. The revised plan moves Gladwyne Pharmacy into the old Market building at 357 Righters Mill Road, puts a still-unnamed restaurant into the former salon space, replaces the current pharmacy and Homeroom cafe building with a new barn-style structure that gives Homeroom more room to expand its hours and its bakery, and turns a residential lot on Youngs Ford Road into parking. As of that June update, the plan still hadn't been formally submitted to Lower Merion Township. Greg Prichard, the township's historic preservation planner, has said the project will need to clear multiple review boards before the Board of Commissioners gives final approval.

Some of what Haldon House wants to do doesn't even require that approval. Gladwyne's downtown carries a "neighborhood center" zoning designation adopted in 2023, which allows small-scale commercial uses and storefront changes by right. The slow part isn't the zoning. It's the traffic study residents have asked for, the parking questions raised by longtime architect Ed Lewis, and the basic fact that changing a building people have looked at their whole lives requires more buy-in than changing what's inside one.

Not everyone is waiting on that buy-in with the same patience. Fred Abrams, a real estate developer who's lived in Gladwyne for seven years, called the project "an absolute no-brainer." Others aren't there yet.

The Restaurant That Didn't Wait

Compare that to what happened in Narberth. In March, Malooga opened at 203 Haverford Avenue, a second location for the Yemeni and Saudi restaurant that's been running in Old City Philadelphia since 2021. Chef Mohammed Aqlan and CEO Omar Alkahily brought a full bakery and coffee bar along with the menu, and the response was fast enough that they ended up hiring ahead of schedule, running roughly four months ahead of their own sales projections. Weeks later, Lassan Indian Traditional opened at 232 Woodbine Avenue, taking over the space that used to be Margot. It's the second location for the Lafayette Hill BYOB, co-owned by Pema Lama and Shyam Dimdung.

Narberth Mayor Dana Edwards called the two openings "a real sign of momentum for our downtown." No renderings, no civic association vote, no revised master plan. Both businesses signed leases on existing commercial space and opened.

Here's the detail most people miss: Narberth isn't part of Lower Merion Township at all. It's its own borough, fully surrounded by the township, which is why its leaf blower ordinance had to be written to match Lower Merion's line for line. When Narberth's council passed its own ban on gas-powered leaf blowers this April, following Lower Merion's ban from last fall, council president Fred Bush explained the reasoning plainly: contractors work across both, so it makes sense to run one set of rules. If you've ever wondered why your landscaper mentions "the new blower rules" whether you live in Bala Cynwyd or Narberth, that's why. Two governments, one set of dates.

Which brings up something worth marking on your calendar. Under Narberth's ordinance, gas-powered leaf blowers are banned from September 1 through October 1 this year, expanding to two seasonal windows in 2027, then most of the year in 2028, then year-round starting January 1, 2029. That first restriction starts this week.

What Homeroom and Malooga Actually Have in Common

The instinct is to read Gladwyne as the town resisting change and Narberth as the town embracing it. That's not quite right. Look at what's actually filling the space in both places. In Gladwyne, the plan keeps Gladwyne Pharmacy and Homeroom, two businesses that were already there, and simply gives them more room. In Narberth, both new restaurants are expansions of businesses that already existed elsewhere and wanted a second location in a walkable downtown. Neither town is importing something foreign to its character. The difference is entirely in what has to happen physically before that expansion can be seen.

A restaurant taking over an existing dining room needs a lease, a health inspection, and a liquor license if applicable. A project that involves razing a building on Youngs Ford Road for a parking lot, or replacing the current pharmacy building with new construction, triggers historic review, traffic studies, and a formal application to the township that, as of this summer, hadn't even been filed yet. Same intention. Different amount of friction.

Here's how the two projects stack up:

The Ordinance Nobody's Fighting About

The leaf blower rules are the cleanest example of how fast change moves when nobody's arguing about it. Lower Merion passed its ban last fall. Narberth followed months later with almost the same language, unanimously, with fines that escalate from $100 to $250 to $600 for repeat violations. There was no petition, no traffic study, no five-month redesign. The two governments simply agreed the rule made sense and adopted it on a matching schedule so contractors working both sides of the line wouldn't have to track two sets of dates.

Compare that to the parking lot proposed for Youngs Ford Road, which still needs to clear a historic review board before a shovel touches the ground. Both are changes to how the neighborhood operates day to day. One took a council vote. The other, eight months after its first public unveiling, was still waiting on a formal application as of this summer.

What This Actually Tells You

If you live near either downtown, the practical takeaway isn't which project you should root for. It's that the pace of visible change in your own neighborhood has less to do with how much money is behind it and more to do with how many existing footprints it fits into. A restaurant moving into a space that already had a restaurant moves fast. A pharmacy relocating across the street, in a building that has to come down first, moves slowly, no matter who's paying for it. Next time you hear about a project stalled in review or one that seemed to appear overnight, that's usually the real explanation, not enthusiasm or resistance, but how much of the existing structure it has to work around.

If you're weighing a move to this stretch of the Main Line and want someone who actually tracks which projects are moving and which are stuck in review, Ainlay Dixon can walk you through what's changing block by block. Get your instant home valuation to start the conversation.