A college town that shops like a much bigger one. Boutiques and bookshops run along Lancaster Avenue, the Film Institute keeps a 1926 theater in business as a nonprofit art house, and the farmers market takes over the station lot on Saturdays.
10 things on this weekend, 184 on the calendar in Bryn Mawr.
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The Bryn Mawr barbecue arm of La Cabra Brewing, with its own beer list beside the pit. Brisket and baby back ribs come off the smoker, the signature mac and cheese runs four ways, and Wednesdays from 3pm bring 36-hour fermented sourdough pizza.
The Bryn Mawr branch of the Tom's Dim Sum family that started in Philadelphia's Chinatown, cooking Shanghai and Cantonese dim sum. Soup dumplings, pan-fried pork dumplings and scallion pancakes.
The Bryn Mawr room of a six-location Indian kitchen, and the one location of the six with a liquor license, with a $10 corkage fee if you bring a bottle anyway. The menu runs past tikka masala into Nepali steamed momos.
A Chinese kitchen on Conestoga Road running several menus at once: a dim sum list of crystal shrimp dumplings and roast pork buns, a Sichuan page of dan dan noodles and Chongqing chicken, and Peking duck under the chef's specials. Lunch deals Mon to Sat until 3pm.
A ramen counter on West Lancaster Avenue working in shoyu and tonkotsu broths, topped with chashu pork belly, soft-boiled egg, bamboo shoots and scallions.
A Vietnamese kitchen on the west end of Lancaster Ave, working through pho, banh mi and summer rolls. It keeps no website of its own, so the phone is the only way to check hours before you go.
A Villanova-crowd pub on the site of the old Ivy Inn, run since 2002 by a group of alumni, with a taxidermied Maine moose watching the room since the 2005 reopening and happy hour weekdays from 4.
A Lancaster Avenue bar and grill going since 1975, known for hand-tossed pizza, burgers and wings, with the soups, sauces, dressings, desserts and even the ice cream made in house.
A pub on West Lancaster Avenue where the kitchen runs burgers, shepherd's pie, poutine and cheesesteaks until 9:30pm and the bar keeps going to 2am Thursday through Saturday.
A bakery, coffee shop and scratch kitchen that has been going since 2015, with the Bryn Mawr room open every day from 7am for sourdough, pastries and coffee. Dine in or take out, service dogs only inside.
The cafe in the Campus Center at Bryn Mawr College, with coffee out front and a short-order kitchen doing sandwiches, salads, quesadillas, burgers and pizza. Hours move with the academic calendar.
The Main Line half of a two-town Italian pair, dinner only, with handmade pasta and shareable plates out of the kitchen and happy hour at the bar Tuesday through Friday from 4.
Consigned furniture, lamps, art and rugs on West Lancaster Avenue. What is on the floor in any given week depends entirely on what came through the door the week before.
Independent women's clothing shop on West Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, next door to John Fish & Son at 1022. A single storefront, not a mall label.
Tennis shop on Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, doing racquets, stringing, shoes and apparel and nothing else.
Small gift shop on West Lancaster Avenue, the sort of storefront you duck into when a present is needed in the next twenty minutes.
Designer consignment on Lancaster Avenue, at the half-number address beside Pasha Boutique. The racks turn over with whatever Main Line closets let go of that month.
Mediterranean grocery on West Lancaster Avenue, stocked for home cooking: olives, spices, cheeses and breads rather than a full supermarket run.
The nonprofit movie house on Lancaster Ave, in the 1926 Seville Theater building. Art house and repertory programming plus film courses, kept running by its members.
A Radnor Township park in Garrett Hill, named for Emlen Tunnell, the Radnor-raised safety who became the first Black player elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A community arts organization based on the second floor of the Parish House on West Lancaster Avenue. Its calendar of classes and performances lives on the site.
A small neighborhood park on Brook St, just over the Radnor Township line from Bryn Mawr proper. Township green space rather than a destination.
A Lower Merion Township park on Montgomery Ave, best known for its playground. Open lawn and paths around it, township-run and free to walk into.
An art gallery on the Lancaster Avenue stretch through Bryn Mawr. No website and a phone number, so a call ahead beats a drive over.
A Main Line college town where the shopping runs deeper than the population: boutiques and bookshops along Lancaster Avenue, a nonprofit art house in a restored 1926 theater, and a farmers market that sets up by the station every Saturday. Bring a bag.
Start with Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Bryn Mawr College, and Ludington Library. On the books in Bryn Mawr right now: 20 things to do, 184 upcoming events, and 25 places to shop, all kept current.
There are 43 places to eat on our Bryn Mawr list, and you can browse all of them by tag. For the short answer, start with The Best Restaurants in Bryn Mawr: our picks, each with the reason it made the cut.
About 30 minutes by car, off-peak. By rail, Bryn Mawr station on SEPTA's Paoli/Thorndale Line reaches Center City in about 35 minutes. Two SEPTA stations carry the Bryn Mawr name. This is the Regional Rail one, a block north of Lancaster Avenue. The other, half a mile south, is on the Norristown High Speed Line.
Mostly. Park once and the middle of town covers a lot on foot, though a few of our picks want a short drive. We score its main-street walk 4 out of 5; the Bryn Mawr scouting report shows how that compares to the other towns.
Bryn Mawr is in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The commercial core, the station and the colleges sit in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County. About a third of Bryn Mawr, south of Lancaster Avenue, crosses into Haverford and Radnor townships in Delaware County. Nearby Montgomery County towns we cover: North Wales, Ambler, and Collegeville.
That depends on what you want out here, so we keep a full Bryn Mawr scouting report for exactly this question. The quick numbers: a typical home runs about $943K, schools are Lower Merion School District, and 5,879 people call the census-designated place (mostly Lower Merion Township) home.
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