With menus crafted by celebrity chefs and $1.5 billion fueling an expansion out of the New York City area, Wonder Food Hall is poised to descend on Philly's dining scene with 10 new locations in the area, including seven that are set to open in the next couple months.
At 16th and Chestnut streets, where one of the food halls is slated to open in August, signage tempts passersby with photos of the company's offerings — a pulled pork sandwich, piece of pie, salad and basket of tacos.
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"For your picnic in Rittenhouse Square," says one of the advertisements, part of a massive marketing blitz for Wonder's aspirations in the city.
The food hall "super app" founded by billionaire entrepreneur Marc Lore offers a simple proposition: orders from multiple cuisines can be paired together in a single purchase. The company's deliveries are supposed to arrive within 30 minutes or customers can choose to pick up their food in dining areas at Wonder's meal prep locations.
New food halls are set to open in King of Prussia (March), Northeast Philly (April), Ardmore (April), Fishtown (May), West Chester (May), Newtown Square (May), Cherry Hill (May), Mount Laurel (June) and South Philly (July).
"I think it's super effective in getting people in the door," Jonathan Deutsch, a Drexel University professor in the food and hospitality management program, said of Wonder's aggressive rollout in the Philly market. "The easy thing is to get people in there to try it once, and they're on track to do that. Anyone who cares about food and trends and the food scene in Philly is going to try it."
Wonder hopes to 'thread needle' with new model
More than 25 menus at Wonder Food Hall — ranging from burgers and Mexican food to Thai, Middle Eastern and Italian concepts — were developed with the star power of chefs including Bobby Flay, José Andrés, Nancy Silverton and Marcus Samuelsson. The company has grown to 37 locations in the Northeast, mostly in and around New York City, since debuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wonder took another big swing last year by acquiring GrubHub, a move that will help the company open a goal of 90 food halls by the end of 2025.
Lore, who made his fortune as an e-commerce innovator, is best known for founding Diapers.com and Jet.com. He helped Walmart scale up its online shopping operations in the years before launching Wonder and is now on track to become a majority owner of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, among other ventures. In an interview last year, Lore boldly told the New York Times he envisions Wonder as the Amazon of food and beverage.
Deutsch believes that kind of growth will need to be earned with consumer acclaim, and he's not so sure Philly's dining scene will have a consistent appetite for Wonder.
"Philly is not always as excited about shiny new objects as other cities are. It will be interesting," he said. "I'll certainly try it, but I don't see turning my back on my favorite independent restaurants that I've been enjoying for years just because there's another option in town."
Part of Wonder's pitch is blending versatility and convenience to keep customers coming back to sample more of its menus. At some locations, the company is expected to partner with Philly restaurateurs and chefs to bring some of their menus to the Wonder app and food halls.
"I think what they're doing is trying to thread the needle between a ghost kitchen and a fast-casual, dine-in oriented kind of place," Deutsch said.
Food halls generally offer efficiency to operators and vendors because they pool together resources like storage, loading docks, sanitation and other services that independent restaurants otherwise have to pay for on their own. They also have the ability to quickly pivot and experiment more with menus that capitalize on new culinary trends. In Philadelphia, the business model has been hit-or-miss over the last decade.
The Bourse Food Hall in Old City opened with lots of buzz in 2018, but its list of vendors dwindled after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was mostly empty by the time it shut down last year. Other food halls, like the University Fair Food Co. near Drexel and Franklin's Table at the University of Pennsylvania, have benefited from their busy locations around college campuses. Another food hall will open later this year at the Bulletin Building in University City, and Amtrak is planning a food hall of its own across the street as part of the renovation of 30th Street Station.
"The key to these models is volume, and I think a number of these food hall concepts look good on paper," Deutsch said. "But when it's actually time to roll them out, the foot traffic just isn't there to support it."
Even with a delivery-centric business model, Deutsch said Wonder's prices will have to account for the public's wariness of delivery fees if the company expects the app to become a go-to option.
Apart from its ample funding, Wonder does have the key advantage of owning its restaurant concepts and all of their processes. The company takes an industrial approach to food preparation that enables its food halls to cut down on labor costs, which have risen in the restaurant industry since the pandemic. Wonder employees only need limited training to use rapid-cook ovens, fryers and hot water baths to prepare the company's ready-to-go meals.
"What we're seeing in many environments — including Wonder, from what I've heard — is the de-skilling of the art of food preparation and more reliance on folks up the chain at the factory level to do more things," Deutsch said.
Feeding the New York-to-Philly trend
Wonder's entry into Philadelphia is part of a growing trend of New York City restaurants flocking to the area. Commercial real estate brokerage MPN Realty recently listed several examples, noting that operators see Philly and other cities on the I-95 corridor as accessible enough to justify the risk.
New York's Cellar Dog jazz bar opened in Center City last year. Queens nightlife spot the Newsroom and Brooklyn diner Gertie are both headed to Northern Liberties. Brooklyn-based Palestinian restaurant Ayat is slated to open at the former Roxy Theatre in Rittenhouse, and Manhattan’s Pig & Khao will take over the former Martha spot in Kensington.
Wonder declined to comment Monday about why it thinks the greater Philadelphia region is primed for its food halls to thrive.
In Deutsch's courses on food product development at Drexel, he said he often teaches the importance of new businesses figuring out where and how they will fill food voids for consumers. He's not sure whether Wonder can consistently do that, and opening so many locations in an area already known for its diverse restaurant scene could be a big gamble.
"It seems risky to me. I've never heard someone say, 'I'm having trouble finding something to eat in Philadelphia,'" Deutsch said. "I don't think anyone has ever said, 'There's just not enough food options,' or, 'I don't know where to go.' Will people try it once and go back to their old routines? Or will people try it and say, 'This is great and it solves a problem for me and it's a better value for me?'"