Open Somedays? Try Every Day: Inside Our First Artisanal Croissant Spot at 1601 Walnut
The cult NYC croissant shop’s first location outside NY & NJ brings a glass-walled bakery, wild matcha combos, soft serve, and many baked good options to a former bank location.
Back in February, we told you 127 layers was our kind of extra. Well, the layers have landed; Somedays Artisan Bakery & Café is now open at 1601 Walnut Street in the former Republic Bank, and Rittenhouse just got a whole lot flakier.
Making Deposits of a Different Kind
If you’ve been following along, you know this corner has had a journey. Republic Bank who operated here for years and only had a 1-star Yelp rating (that HAS to be lower than AT&T’s Yelp rating) before closing in 2024 due to a burst water pipe and the regulators. That’s a rough year for any bank. When we broke the Somedays news in February, all we had to go on were photos of their Queens and Montclair shops. Then the window decals went up in July with a late-September ETA.
In September, Fellow Rambler @nicoletolliver caught the sign going up, and here we are, pretty much right on schedule. (When does that ever happen?)
Pretty in Pink (and Marble, and Leather)
Step inside and the first thing you’ll notice is how pretty it all is. Their signature yellow neon croissant with “Somedays” in script glows over a tan leather banquette. The marble café tables and bentwood chairs look like they wandered over from a Paris corner café.
Add globe pendants, pink subway tile behind the counter and a soft plaste wash on the walls, and you’ve got a room that feels warm and intimate. Those globe pendants we spotted in the Montclair photos made the trip down the Turnpike, too. We planned to grab a croissant and go. We did not grab a croissant and go.
Keeping It in the Family
Yes, Somedays is a franchise, but this one’s personal. The Philly location is run by Dino Porfyris, who lives right here in town. His brother owns the Somedays in Montclair, NJ, so croissants are officially the family business.
Somedays got its start in Queens under founder and CEO Peter Phillips, who also co-founded Chip City Cookies. He teamed up with chief culinary officer Arlander Brown on a menu of rich pastries in flavors you don’t see every day, like the black sesame tahini croissant and a chocolate hazelnut and praline lattice. Philly makes three states for the brand. When we first wrote about it, Phillips told us he wanted this to be “a place where people can slow down.”
They’re not exactly shy about the buzz, either. A wall by the entrance is lined with framed clips from Bloomberg, The New York Times, Eater, New York Magazine’s Grub Street and The National Herald, all of them swooning over the croissants. Bold? Sure. But if the Times wrote about our pastry, we’d frame it too.
The merch is full of Philly love. There’s a tote with our skyline (City Hall, Liberty Place, the whole crew), a soaring eagle and “ESTD 2026.” It also says “160 Walnut St,” which eagle-eyed Ramblers will notice is missing a 1. We’re betting the reprint is already in the oven.
The Proof Is in the Proofing
Our favorite detail is a big glass window into the baking kitchen, visible from inside the café and from the sidewalk. Bakers laminate and proof croissants right in front of you, then pull them out of the Revent and Wiesheu ovens all day long. Nothing’s frozen. Everything is made on site, fresh, throughout the day.
Remember that slow-down vision? Mission accomplished. Sidewalk traffic in front of that window has officially slowed to a crawl. Hand-laminated, made on site, never frozen. No secrets here.
Butter Believe It
Now, the main event. Somedays makes its croissants with New Zealand butter, laminated by hand into those famous 127 layers, then baked until the outside shatters and the inside stays soft. The classics are covered: a deeply bronzed butter croissant and an almond croissant buried in powdered sugar and sliced almonds.
Then there are the ones that made their name. There’s a glossy chocolate-striped croissant and the black sesame tahini that caught the Times’ attention. Add a pistachio lattice and a blueberry cardamom sweet bun, and it’s basically the greatest-hits album.
The Scoop Beyond the Croissant
Somedays also does soft serve. And Greek frozen yogurt! That is not something we find on every corner around here. It all comes out of an Electro Freeze machine behind the counter, parked right next to the rack of fresh pastries. Croissants and soft serve sharing a counter feels a little chaotic, and we are fully on board.
Cookies are on the menu too (hello, Chip City lineage), with salted caramel, chocolate chunk with flaky salt, and double chocolate.
A Matcha Made in Heaven
The coffee side is serious. There’s a La Marzocco espresso machine, a Fetco batch brewer and beans from Canyon Coffee in Los Angeles, all served in those very photogenic pink Somedays cups.
The matcha menu is where it really gets fun, though. Alongside the house Somedays Matcha, you’ll find a Black Sesame Tahini Matcha, a Pistachio Lattice Matcha, an Almond Croissant Matcha and a Blueberry Cardamom Bun Matcha. The four specialty cold foams (blueberry, black sesame tahini, pistachio and almond) are designed to taste like their most popular pastries. So yes, you can technically drink your croissant. Pair the blueberry cardamom bun with an iced matcha latte and your morning’s off to a very good start.
Open Somedays? Try Every Day
Somedays scored a prime spot. The corner sits right in the middle of the Walnut Street retail stretch, across from Rolex/Govberg, and the big front windows look straight out onto some top-tier people-watching.
And despite the name, they’re open every day; soft opening hours are 7a to 9p (!), then from 7am to 7pm, That means the pre-work croissant and the post-work soft serve are both on the table.
We’ve been tracking this one since February, so getting to write the “they’re open” post feels extra sweet. Swing by for a black sesame tahini croissant and the strangest matcha on the board, then come tell us what you got. We’re already building our personal rotation, and we’re not above stealing yours.
And be sure to follow them on Instagram as they are like to rotate their offerings!
