Chickie & Pete Cafe   

You gotta love Chickie's & Pete's -- or hate it. It's hard to say. The original location in the Mayfair section of Northeast Philly is a city favorite that packs in the patrons. On weekends you can barely breathe. The crowd is a jovial mix of near and far 'locals' who clamor for C&P's trademarked crab fries, covered in zesty seasonings, and hot style shrimp. There's lots of seafood on the menu, including the best-selling blue-claw and Dungeness crabs. Everything comes drenched in seasoned juices, so be prepared to get dirty sopping up the remnants of your meal with bread. Maybe that's why C&P's installed a sink in the middle of the dining room. So what's not to love? At this original location, nothing. But talk about its other outposts on the strip-mall-happy stretch of Roosevelt Boulevard or on South Philly's Packer Avenue and tongues start flapping. Each new incarnation, it seems, gets a tad less personal and a bit more generic. There's more emphasis on getting customers in and out quickly than on nurturing the camaraderie that's so pleasantly obvious at the original.