Chestnut Hill Dining Guide

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Loves Mt. Airy with a passion
‘Theresa’ hits home run with Mediterranean BYOB
by Len Lear

It is worth it to come to Theresa’s BYOB just for the New Orleans-style Spanish shrimp appetizer with saffron, garlic, lemon, hot pepper and herb toast. With the crusty bread, the sauce is dip-alicious!

If there is one thing Theresa Vendetti Jonas loves more than pleasing customers in her new restaurant, it’s the Mt. Airy neighborhood she grew up in more years ago than she’d like to admit. Theresa’s BYOB, which is owned by Theresa and her partner, Bedros Kayserlian, a handsome native of Bulgaria, opened last December at 140 Moorehead Ave. in West Conshohocken, just to the right of the ramp off the Conshohocken exit of the Schuylkill Expressway.

Theresa, whose motor is always in high gear, is one of the most delightful people you will ever meet in the restaurant business. Always on the premises, Theresa grew up on Devon Street in East Mt. Airy (“two minutes from Holy Cross Church”) and now lives in Ambler. Her siblings, children and grandchildren still all live in the immediate area. Her parents are buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

“Most of the people I grew up with still live in or near Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy,” said Theresa. “I recently visited the house I grew up in. I just knocked on the door and asked the current residents if I could walk around inside. They were very nice and let me do it. I just started crying because of all the memories. I loved growing up there so much. We had Irish, Italian and German people on the block, and we were all close.

The Savoy Company will present Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Ruddigore” Friday & Saturday, May 28 & 29, 8 p.m., at the Academy of Music.. Founded in 1901, Savoy is in its 110th season. Among the cast members are Susan Blair and her husband, Mort Paterson. Susan will be portraying Dame Hannah while Mort will play Old Adam.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Susan came to Philadelphia as a college student. She and Mort previously lived in Chestnut Hill but now call East Mt. Airy their home. Susan has worked as a paralegal since 1987 with the firm of Bazelon Less & Feldman in center city. Her first performance with the Savoy Company was in its 1996 mounting of “Patience,” in which she portrayed Lady Angela.

Mary Ann Baron, whose Chestnut Hill home borders the Wissahickon Park, calls her friend Bridget Irons every year when the deer kill in the Wissahickon is about to begin. “We just can’t believe this is still  going on,” she said. Although the public was initially told that the “cull” would be a one-time-only event, it has continued from 2001 to  the present, with no signs of stopping.

Eight students at Crefeld School in Chestnut Hill chose the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts in Germantown for their annual Spring Field Trip (trumping surfing in Florida and an excursion to Texas). Doing splits up front is Eve Friedman-Dekro of Mt. Airy. Backbending behind her is Jessie Kottmeyer of Downingtown. Chris Lapp of Hatboro and Doylestown is on the silks. At either end are, from left, Megan Schmon of Gulph Mills, leaning on squatter Sophie Levitties of Chestnut Hill, and teacher Sara Nava of Mt. Airy, leaning on teacher Mike Hawkins of Chestnut Hill. Standing in the center are Polly Carr of Elkins Park, Evan McKenty of Springfield (Delco) and Ishara Serrette of Germantown.

The motto at Crefeld School in Chestnut Hill is “Not all great minds think alike.” But eight Crefeld students recently agreed on one thing: that they would use their annual Spring field trip, a week-long adventure, to study circus arts.