Give your home a refresh at Trading Post Depot
Located in Easton, the new showroom offers a variety of hand-crafted wooden furniture
Spring has sprung, and a blossoming business in downtown Easton is helping bring the beauty of nature inside. Trading Post Depot, offering hand-crafted wooden furniture, opened about two weeks ago at 401 Northampton St. (former Gallery on Fourth space).
The showroom is a second location of the business, which originated in 2005 in Spring City, Chester County, and has become known for one-ofa-kind, live-edge creations, including bars, desks, islands, mantels, shelves and one of its most popular offerings, farmhouse-style tables. Live-edge slabs are also available for your own projects.
“Most people come to us for custom orders,” owner Ed DiLello said. “They can, of course, choose something from the showroom floor, but they’ll usually point to a table or another piece that they like and say they want it in a certain length or width.”
DiLello’s father, a master craftsman who heads operations in Spring City, makes the furniture by hand using techniques that he’s fine-tuned over decades in the trade.
Custom orders typically take 4-8 weeks to complete, DiLello said, and pricing varies based on the desired size and wood type.
A variety of wood, including maple, walnut, ash and oak, is sourced from Pennsylvania, with each slab featuring a unique wood grain pattern.
Resin’s often used to create unique tabletop designs around the live-edge wood, and industrial metal bases are forged off-site at another fabricator, DiLello said. The shop also sells Amish-made wooden chairs.
The one-of-a-kind, rustic tables become great conversation pieces as they are “both works of art and truly functional furniture,” according to a message on the business’ website.
Trading Post Depot’s Easton location is open 4-8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.
Sundays and by appointment Monday through Wednesday. Info: 610-216-2806; tradingpostdepot.com.
Expanding chains
About five miles northwest of downtown Easton, two popular chains are planning to open their first Lehigh Valley locations at a Lower Nazareth Township shopping center.
Crumbl Cookies, a cookie shop chain featuring a rotating menu of more than 200 flavors inspired by cakes, candies, pies, and other desserts, and Club Pilates, a boutique Pilates studio specializing in reformer fusion classes for people of all ages and fitness levels, are coming soon to the Northampton Crossings, at Routes 248 and 33.
The companies’ new outposts will occupy newly divided spaces that previously housed a Catherines women’s clothing store in a building that’s also home to a Starbucks cafe, according to Harrison Lyss, managing director of real estate operations for National Realty & Development Corp., Northampton Crossings’ owner.
Representatives for both chains did not immediately return messages seeking a tentative opening date, but Lyss noted that the spaces are under construction and he expects the new tenants will be open in either the third or fourth quarters of this year.
Crumbl, the fastest-growing cookie company in the nation, was founded in 2017 when cousins Jason McGowan (CEO) and Sawyer Hemsley (COO) opened their first Crumbl store in Logan, Utah, while Hemsley was attending Utah State University, according to a company description.
Since its founding, the company has grown to more than 400 locations nationwide, including nine others in Pennsylvania. The closest locations to the Lehigh Valley are in Bucks and Montgomery counties.
As Crumbl continued to grow, so did its flavor offerings. The company’s award-winning
milk chocolate chip cookie has always been on the menu with its chilled pink sugar cookie becoming a semi-permanent menu item soon after.
Crumbl then introduced its rotating menu concept, with the frequency and timing of the menu evolving until its iconic four flavor weekly rotation was established in December 2018.
Menu highlights include cookies that are served warm such as iced oatmeal, triple chocolate chip and peanut butter featuring Snickers; chilled cookies such as Key lime pie. Info: crumblcookies.com.
Club Pilates, the largest Pilates brand and studio network worldwide, offers low-impact, full-body workouts with a variety of classes that “challenge your mind as well as your body,” according to the company’s website.
At more than 650 studios spanning four continents, the reformer-based group Pilates classes are complemented by other apparatus, including TRX springboards, EXO chairs and BOSU balls, designed to build strength, mobility and stability.
Individuals can choose from a variety of group class membership packages, including four- and eightpacks, unlimited, annual and passport (for individuals planning to work out at multiple studios). Info: clubpilates.com.
Staying on the topic of chains, a new McDonald’s eatery, featuring a two-lane drive-thru, self-ordering kiosks and seating capacity for 42 customers, is expected to open in mid-April at 6690 Short Drive in Upper Saucon Township, according to franchise owner James McIntyre.
The newly constructed restaurant will operate next to a new Wawa gas station and convenience store at the southwest corner of Route 309 and Passer Road.
A few homes, the former Truly Fine home furnishings store and the former Peppercorn Pub-turned apartment building were razed to make way for the development.
The restaurant’s opening day will be announced on the business’ Facebook page, and the first 50 customers will receive a free Big Mac every week for a year, McIntyre said.
The new eatery will be the fifth area McDonald’s for McIntyre and his wife, Karen, who together operate under the Jamren McDonald’s business name. The couple also owns McDonald’s locations in Hellertown, Easton, Quakertown and Milford Township.
“I’m a second-generation McDonald’s operator,” James said. “My dad was in it before me. I started in 1996, and then I bought my first restaurant in 2008.”
At their Upper Saucon McDonald’s, the McIntyres plan to hold a ribbon-cutting celebration with the Southern Lehigh Chamber of Commerce 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. April 26. The Southern Lehigh High School Marching Band is set to perform just prior to the 11:45 a.m. ribbon cutting.
Closing notes
an Allentown landmark restaurant has shared heartbreaking news with its customers.
The Brass Rail, an iconic eatery where generations of families have gathered for pot roast sandwiches, cheesesteaks, hot dogs and spaghetti, will close June 4.
In 2020, brother and sister co-owners Mark Sorrentino and Pam Ray signed an agreement of sale for the 3015 Lehigh St. property with a developer. Royal Farms, a Baltimore-based convenience store and gas stain chain, filed sketch plans last summer to open a new location at the Brass Rail site.
“This was a very difficult decision,” Sorrentino wrote in a message posted on the restaurant’s door. “We want to express our gratitude to all of our loyal customers for your patronage over the past 91 years, as well as our wonderful family of employees.”
When Sorrentino and Ray signed the agreement, they were planning to move the longstanding business to an undetermined location.
However, those plans changed over the past year due to a “number of factors,” Sorrentino said.
“It’s very difficult to operate a business in today’s environment,” he explained. “It’s the shortage of staff, the rise in prices of everything, the cost of either renting or buying property; everything is through the roof. So, we decided it would be best at this point to take a step back and try to figure out if there’s something in the future for us.”
Sorrentino is still planning to serve up eats at an Allentown Fair stand at the end of summer, but he cautions it may be The Brass Rail’s final appearance at the event. He’s also “keeping options open” for possible future ventures.
“I’m not ruling out any possibilities — whether it’s a food truck or another location or maybe it just won’t work,” he said. “It’s an extremely difficult decision, being a third-generation operator of a family restaurant that’s been in business for 91 years. It’s also a matter of our loyal customers and employees, who are like a second family to me.”
The Brass Rail was founded in 1931 by Mark’s grandfather, Philip Sorrentino. The business began as an Allentown hamburger and hot dog stand before increasing success led to its expansion at 1137 Hamilton St. in 1933. The downtown Allentown spot closed in 2001, 40 years after the Lehigh Street location opened. Info: brassrailrestaurant.com.
I’ll finish with a couple of other closing notes: First, in downtown Bethlehem, Back Door Bakeshop ,a popular take-out cafe and bakeshop, last weekend closed its brick-and-mortar location after nine years of business at 92 E. Broad St.
Back Door has gone back to its origins as a wholesale business, according to a message on the business’ website. It will continue to provide baked goods at Scholl Orchards in Bethlehem, as well as at local festivals and community events.
“This is all very bittersweet for us, and we hope you understand that it wasn’t an easy decision,” partners Gail Lehman and Dina Hall stated on the business’ Facebook page. “The most important thing is that we’ve missed too much time with our family, and we’re looking forward to making up for that lost time.”
Back Door, known for its scones, cookies, cinnamon rolls and other baked goods, was established in 2009 at 1422 Center St. in Bethlehem. Operations moved about a mile south to a larger city space at the corner of East Broad and Center streets in 2013. Info: backdoorbakeshop.com.
Lastly, religious store Abundant Graces closed Saturday, April 2, after 20 years of business at 3348 Easton Ave. in Bethlehem Township.
“I’m going to be 73 in a month or so and I was praying for years, ‘Show us how we’re going to end this,’ ” co-owner Terri O’Connell told The Morning Call earlier this year. “Are we going to go forever, until 90?”
God’s answer, she said, was the pending expiration of the lease on the Easton Avenue store, where O’Connell and partner Laura Smith have provided customers — individuals and churches — with books, rosaries, jewelry, statues, vestments, music, communion wafers and more.
The building owners plan to update and sell the building. O’Connell and Smith didn’t want to relocate.
As I reported Wednesday,