LOLfood: America’s Latest Trend Is Old News to Philly
Eater declares silly, nostalgic comfort food the country's newest trend. But in Philly, it's just business as usual.
Clockwise from top left: Gass & Main’s spaghetti sandwich; Roxanne’s dinosaur chicken nugget; Middle Child Clubhouse’s pancake; and Juana Tamale’s birria ramen. / Photographs by Gass & Main, Roxanne, Middle Child Clubhouse, and Michael Persico
Have you noticed that food is getting sillier? Childish and quirky? Perhaps dumb, but in a fun way? Pizza rolls at Manhattan’s The Corner Store, the tableside “Spaghetti Uh-O’s” at Chicago’s Void, and the jalapeño popper arancini at Portland’s Take Two are all part of what Eater deems as America’s newest food trend: LOLfood.
Though this nostalgic comfort food trend may be new in other parts of the country (all of the previously mentioned restaurants opened in 2024), it’s not new in Philly. In fact, we’d argue this national trend started here and reveals a lot about who we are as Philadelphians.
The Eater article in question was penned by Jaya Saxena, who defines this trend as “comfort food, but with a slightly trolling ‘lol wouldn’t it be funny’ edge; fun is always at the forefront.” She theorizes that it’s a response to the trying times we’re currently in. As the world burns, other cities are dropping pretentious dining in exchange for a taste of simpler times when school lunch mozzarella sticks were less political and a can of chicken noodle soup had the power to melt away a cold and our worries.
A similar trend leaning on “comfort, value and simplicity,” as NPR food commentator Bonny Wolf said in 2009, bubbled up during the recession, marked by a plate of spaghetti and meatballs that graced the cover of Gourmet magazine.
But this current iteration — a nihilistic early-2000s, millennial humor of turning away from traditional techniques and fine dining to feed our inner Toys R Us kid — is a hyper-charged version of that. And that quirkiness has been a signature part of Philly’s identity for years.
The spaghetti sandwich from Gass & Main / Photograph courtesy of Gass & Main
“When that article came out I was like, this isn’t new, I’ve been cooking like this my whole career with SpaghettiOs, hot dogs, and nostalgic vibes,” says Dane Demarco, the culinary imagineer behind Gass & Main in Haddonfield. For about a decade now, Demarco has been making waves in Philly’s restaurant scene, from their 2017 Best of Philly-winning patty melt served up on a Philly pretzel at American Sardine Bar to the outrageous burgers at their arcade game-themed restaurant Burgertime. The good times continue to roll at Gass & Main where they serve the World’s Best Hot Dog made from Snake River Wagyu and a rotating menu of other dishes like fish sticks, wiz-wit steak frites, and a spaghetti sandwich.
Another early LOLfood adopter was Matt Cahn, who opened the original Middle Child sandwich shop in 2017 as a tribute to Philly’s diners, delis, and sandwich shops. In an interview with Philly Mag, Cahn mentioned that longstanding institutions like Little Pete’s, Midtown, and Salumeria (where he used to work) were being replaced with fast-casual spots like Sweetgreen and Honeygrow. To preserve the cozy, hometown feel of a bygone era, he opened up his Midtown Village shop, where you could eat Salumeria-inspired sandwiches under a portrait of Princess Diana rocking an Eagles jacket.
The pandemic years seem to have accelerated Philly’s push toward silly food, which lines up with NPR and Eater’s arguments that our craving for comfort food is a response to hard times. Philly was on the LOLfood train long before the trend had a name; the pandemic just seemed to make us double down on quirky cuisine.
Juana Tamale’s Birria ramen / Photograph by Michael Persico
Cahn’s next project, Middle Child Clubhouse, which opened up in Fishtown back in October of 2021, leaned further into “nostalgic, old-school shit that’s also fun,” as he describes. There’s a private party room that you can book where you can house burgers and French fries while playing Goldeneye 007 on a Nintendo 64, and a menu that includes such hits as baked French onion dip, spinach-and-artichoke-stuffed peppers, and a classic banana split for two. We recommend a dirty Shirley as a beverage pairing. (It’s not on the menu, but they’ll make it for you.)
We’ve seen a lot of LOLfood pop up in Philly over the past five years. In December 2020, Mallory Valvano started Party Girl Bake Club where she makes Victorian Lambeth-style cakes with Fruity Pebbles and potato chips, decorated to be as vibrant as a Technicolor fever dream. In 2021, just a month after MCC opened, Jen Zavala hit us with Juana Tamale, where she serves up loaded fries, birria ramen, and a Mexi-pizza that’s reminiscent of Taco Bell but made with super high-quality masa. And in 2022, Alexandra Holt opened Roxanne, a cross between a restaurant and piece of performance art where you can dip dinosaur chicken nuggets into house-fermented hot sauce, crème fraîche, and caviar.
Roxanne’s dinosaur chicken nugget / Photograph courtesy of Roxanne
And then there’s Liz Groethe, who started her own “seriously unserious” culinary journey in 2022 with her apartment supper club and pop-up dinner series Couch Cafe themed around Oklahoma chicken-fried steak and Olive Garden. She recently opened Scampi, her new brick-and-mortar restaurant that focuses on the “Italian diaspora.”
Though Groethe’s food at Scampi has become a little more grown-up, she still adds humorous touches to the menu — like how there’s always some kind of amped-up hot dog, and how she tops her tiramisu with Frosted Flakes. However, her approach to comfort food has become a bit more scholarly, analyzing nostalgia through the lens of America’s many intersecting historical foodways. For an upcoming menu, she’s serving fettuccine Alfredo. “It’s not that serious, because Olive Garden does it,” she laughs. “But you can trace the history to where Olive Garden got it — they got it from Italy. I’d like to show people that you can take the food seriously without making it boring.”
Grothe points out that the combination of butter and Parmigiano Reggiano with pasta is a distinctly Italian dish. Add cream to that, and you’ve got fettuccine alfredo — cream wasn’t available to most Italians because they couldn’t afford it, but come to the United States, and you’ve got tons of cream and far less access to true Parmigiano cheese.
Scampi’s fettuccini alfredo / Photograph courtesy of Scampi
“I like to inject parts of American-Italian culture that other people look down their noses upon and just like, give the perspective that this isn’t lame. It’s not silly. It is Italian,” Grothe says.
Her willingness to elevate dishes others may look down on speaks to a broader truth about Philly’s food culture: We’re unpretentious, and proud of it. We’re a city where highbrow and lowbrow coexist comfortably and where a meticulously crafted hot dog can be just as celebrated as a fine dining tasting menu.
Ultimately, the LOLfood era isn’t just a trend in Philadelphia; it’s a reflection of our city’s soul. We embrace the playful and familiar, not as a fleeting fad but as an inherent part of our culinary DNA. We’re committed to the quirky — we love our weird traditions, like a stale soft pretzel after an Eagles game and the burning trash cans that warm up the Italian Market. So, while national food trends come and go, Philly will stay silly.
