Competition in a Cup: Little Amps to hold annual latte contest, fundraiser

March 11, 2020 | by Maddie Conley

Which is which? Coffee cuppers makes their selections during last year’s “throw-down” at Little Amps. Photos: Aimee Nguyen

Most days, Little Amps is pretty chill—a good place to hang out, enjoy a cup, chat and work. But, for one night each year, the competition really heats up.

Little Amps Coffee Roasters is holding its annual latte art competition at its State Street location on March 20. Contestants will put their pouring skills to the test as they go head-to-head to win judges over with their coffee masterpieces. [Please note: this event has been postponed.]

“Every year, we do a throw-down,” Rik Shellhamer, marketing director for Little Amps, said. “The latte art is like a celebration. People get really excited.”

This year’s contest is called the “Spring Break Oatdown” because it is sponsored by Oatly, an oat milk company. All the milk used in the lattes will be oat milk. To match the theme, Little Amps is encouraging attendees to wear spring break attire.

Each barista or self-taught coffee connoisseur will enter a bracket of around 26 to 32 participants. The top three will win Little Amps swag and coffee-related items.

“It’s a party that anyone’s welcome to come to,” Shellhamer said.

Little Amps Barista Kaiti Pates learned the art of a beautiful latte through YouTube and competed in the showdown a couple times over the years.

“I like when other coffee houses come through,” Pates said. “I like that sort of community, and I like a competition.”

In addition to the latte art, there will be a cupping triangulation contest with people tasting three cups of coffee to determine which is different.

The event is open to the public and is free to watch and $5 to participate, Shellhamer said.

Throughout the night, there will be music, catering by Korealicious and beer from Troegs. Money from the signups and additional donations will go to Brigada Solidaria del Oeste, an earthquake disaster relief team in Puerto Rico.

While the competition may be hot, Shellhamer explained the event is all about having fun.

“It’s just to have a good time with our community,” she said. “It’s just to get out of the winter funk and get everyone together.”

Please note that, due to the coronavirus crisis, the Spring Break Oatdown, which was supposed to take place next week at Little Amps, 133 State St., Harrisburg, as been postponed. For more information, visit https://littleampscoffee.com/.

Harrisburg Planning Commission approves revised, 11-story design for HU academic building

March 10, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

An aerial rendering of HU’s building following the redesign

The city got its first look on Tuesday night at a revised design for a planned academic building for downtown Harrisburg.

At a special meeting of the city Planning Commission, Harrisburg University presented its plan for an 11-story building at the corner of Chestnut and S. 3^rd streets.

“The revised design is very similar to what was approved (previously),” said David Alessi, senior associate at Stantec, the project’s design and engineering firm.

Last year, the commission approved plans for a 17-story building and a 10-story, 197-room hotel. However, HU’s hotel partner, Harrisburg-based HHM, was unable to secure financing for that portion of the project, said HU President Eric Darr.

“We worked with multiple finance partners, but we couldn’t wait any longer,” Darr told commission members.

The problem, he said, was comparative. He said that project analysis showed that the hotel would be profitable. Nonetheless, potential financiers felt that they could get an even better return by committing their money to projects in other cities, he said.

Darr said that HU’s analysis showed “a clear demand for a hotel in the city of Harrisburg.”

With the loss of the hotel, HU cut the project’s size by about one-third, proceeding solely with an educational building. The $100-million, 260,000-square-foot facility will house HU’s new Health Science Education Center.

Planning Commission members seemed satisfied with the design, complimenting HU for adding brick to the façade and for aligning the design with HU’s current tower on Market Street.

“I like how it blends in with HU’s tower,” said commissioner Zachary Monnier. “It’s matching up with the building.”

The new design also eliminates a planned curb cut along Chestnut Street, which some city officials had criticized.

Following HU’s presentation, the commission unanimously approved the new development plan, which now must be approved by City Council.

HU has already cleared the site at S. 3^rd and Chestnut streets, but hasn’t yet started to build the structure. Assuming the revised development plan passes muster with council, HU expects the building to begin to take shape this summer and be completed in late 2021.

Harrisburg Council overturns mayor’s veto following tense exchange over development strategy, policy

March 10, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

Harrisburg City Council in session on Tuesday

Harrisburg City Council overturned a mayoral veto on Tuesday, though the two branches of government agreed to work towards a policy that could give the city more leverage over future development projects.

By a 5-2 vote, council rejected the action by Mayor Eric Papenfuse, who recently vetoed a resolution that would vacate several “paper” streets on a parcel of land where the new federal courthouse now is rising.

Before the meeting, Papenfuse said that he vetoed the resolution to make a point. He wants council members to create a policy that would require developers to conduct a “public benefit analysis” when requesting street vacations.

Such a policy, he said, would give the city leverage as developers continue to plan projects in Harrisburg. In exchange for the street vacation, the city could ask for certain benefits, such as offsetting city-borne costs, making streetscape improvements, utilizing local labor or including affordable housing.

“It could help us with affordable housing policy in the city,” he said. “In Seattle, and many cities, they require a public benefit proposal on the part of the developer.”

Last month, council approved a resolution that would vacate “various unnamed paper streets” on the 4.2-acre site at N. 6^th and Reily streets, where the federal government is building a 243,000-square-foot courthouse.

Usually, paper streets are narrow “baker’s” or “grocer’s” alleys that offer rear access to row houses. On the courthouse site, neither the houses nor the alleys exist any longer, but the public rights of way remain on paper.

On Tuesday, Papenfuse told council that, currently, the city holds little leverage over a developer outside of the normal planning and zoning process. Requiring an analysis for street vacations would give the city a tool to extract “public benefit” concessions for large projects, he said.

“It would be a power vested in City Council that is not granted through the land development process,” he said.

Papenfuse then summarized Seattle’s policy to council, using it as an example of an effective street vacation policy, saying that the process could be used to place leverage on developers to include affordable housing in their projects or to mandate the use of local labor.

“I know we have a lot of street vacations coming down the pike,” Papenfuse said. “I’m hopeful that we can develop a policy.”

Before casting her override vote, council President Wanda Williams criticized Papenfuse’s housing strategy, saying that he has supported past development proposals in the city that didn’t include an affordable housing element.

“I’m a little outraged by that veto,” she said. “I asked for an affordable housing component, and you sat there with your head down each and every time.”

Despite a lengthy, critical exchange with Papenfuse, Williams said that she would be interested in discussing a street vacation policy.

“I think we should work on this quickly,” agreed council member Dave Madsen, one of two votes, along with council member Westburn Majors, to uphold the veto.

Papenfuse admitted that his veto was unlikely to impact the federal courthouse project, which is well underway and slated for completion in spring 2022. But he said that he wanted to make a point that council should pass a street vacation policy.

“These are public streets,” he said. “Potentially, there are things that could be received in exchange, which goes well beyond the courthouse.”

This was Papenfuse’s second veto of a “street vacation” resolution. Early last year, he vetoed a street vacation resolution for the proposed site of an AutoZone store in Uptown Harrisburg, which council also overturned.

At that time, Papenfuse said he wanted to use the street vacation to pressure AutoZone to submit development plans that he considered to be more satisfactory. In fact, council just last month granted the AutoZone project two more street vacations, which should allow construction to begin soon on the project.

Members of the Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania (MILPA), along with Harrisburg City Council members, pose for a picture following the unanimous council vote to back legislation allowing all residents to secure driver’s licenses.

In other action on Tuesday, City Council:

Voted 6-1 to approve an agreement transferring the Strawberry Square Arcade to the Strawberry Square Condominium Association, with Williams voting no.
By a 5-2 vote, approved a resolution to hire Harrisburg-based Maverick Strategies to continue to provide consulting and lobbying for Harrisburg. The agreement for the $5,000 monthly retainer expires on Dec. 31.
Unanimously passed a resolution hiring Ecological Solutions to provide lake management services for Italian Lake at a cost of $9,125.
Unanimously passed a resolution backing state legislation that would allow Pennsylvania residents, regardless of immigration status, access to a valid driver’s license. Following the vote, about 40 members of the Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania (MILPA), who spearheaded the resolution and attended the meeting, cheered loudly, vocalizing their support for council’s action.

Harrisburg area home sales, prices rise in February

March 10, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

A “for sale” sign outside a building in Harrisburg

Housing data continued to be strong in the Harrisburg area, with sales and prices both up in February.

For the three-county region, sales increased to 487 housing units last month, compared to 441 in February 2019 and 388 in February 2018, according to the Greater Harrisburg Association of Realtors (GHAR). The median sales price was $180,000 versus $168,000 in the year-ago period and $157,000 in February 2018, GHAR said.

In Dauphin County, 250 housing units sold in February, compared to 235 last year, while the median price rose to $164,900 versus $150,000 in February 2019, according to GHAR.

In Cumberland County, 214 homes sold compared to 191 a year ago, while the median sales price increased to $213,000 from $195,000 in February 2019. Perry County also showed a sales increase, to 23 units versus 15 last year, though the median price fell to $163,000 from $210,000 in February 2019, GHAR said.

Over the past year, both housing sales and prices have generally trended up in the Harrisburg area, according to GHAR.

Burg Review: “Curious Incident,” a puzzle beautifully solved at Theatre Harrisburg

March 8, 2020 | by Gina Napoli

A scene from “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” now playing at Theatre Harrisburg. Photo: Chris Guerrisi

This play should come with a warning: contains more math than is digestible on weekends. Though following number logic feels like work, it’s integral to understanding the main character.

In “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” Christopher Boone [Garrett Kinsley], a 15-year-old autistic boy, interprets the world through numbers, patterns, rituals and literal meanings. In a mind so concrete, pictorial and organized, abstract concepts like heaven, God and emotions do not compute.

It’s through this first-person lens that Kinsley skillfully takes us on Christopher’s journey. Imagine the stage as his mind. Props are arranged logically and linearly, with images inside cubed boxes, with trapdoors and ramps. Different scenes flash on the walls like a choppy projector. Each memory is compartmentalized into boxes.

Irregular transitions between each of the play’s 52 scenes reflect his abrupt nature. Voices in his head are personified. The chalkboard walls and flooring are symbolic of his black-and-white interpretations. In a way, the setting becomes a character, gliding us through Christopher’s mind seamlessly between past and present without chronology confusion.

We first meet Christopher in his neighbor Mrs. Shears’ [Andrea Stephenson] front yard. He rocks self-soothingly, petting her dog, which is pierced with a pitchfork. When a crowd gathers, escalating the situation, Christopher seems unaware that he looks guilty. What may have been easily clarified ends with Christopher at the police station and Dad [Anthony Leukus] rescuing him.

Christopher becomes fixated on finding the killer, despite his Dad forbidding it. Christopher’s search starts in the neighborhood, where a kindly grandmother [Lois Heagy] tries to befriend him. He rebuffs her friendship in the same way he avoids eye contact, human touch and foods that are yellow and brown. His teacher [Brenda C. Eppley] seems to be the only adult outside his family able to penetrate his shell.

In the same way Christopher unravels the mystery of who killed Mrs. Shears’ dog, his own life begins to spiral when his sleuthing uncovers family secrets. He chronicles his findings in a private book, turning this play into a story-within-a-story. Dad reacts violently when he finds the book, showcasing uncomfortable father-son stage combat.

Then the mood shifts. Act two finds Christopher running away to London. He mismanages through several train stations, endangering himself repeatedly. Then he painfully navigates interpersonal situations, past and present.

Although Dad usually handles Christopher well, Dad’s capacity is limited. Leukus balances the dark and light within Dad’s character to make him sympathetic, bringing forth the dichotomy in an unnervingly human way.

Also awkward to watch is Christopher’s mother [Callie Alvanitakis] trying to manage his public tantrums. Alvanitakis beautifully translates that discomfort to her unsettled relationships with the other characters.

Christopher uses his routines to push himself through a tired haze to focus on taking his high-level math exam, three years ahead of his current level. He cares enough about this exam to expend a whole stick of chalk explaining complex geometry/algebra to the audience. I won’t tell you which theorem; no spoilers here.

Theatre Harrisburg’s Executive Director Stosh Snyder said, “It’s hard to believe Garrett [Kinsley] is not on the spectrum himself. He really did his research to immerse himself in that role.”

To perfect his character, Kinsley drew on special needs kids his sister teaches. And he had help from the script. “That could have been more work for me, but the character was well defined in the blocking and the text,” he said.

Except for the math problem.

“That monologue was nearly the death of me. I kept blanking at rehearsal,” Kinsley said. “Having chalkboard walls helped, though.”

The walls and other inventive set elements sprang from Director Dave Olmstead’s imagination. He looked to the original novel for pictures, and he sought insights from his students with autism.

“Not having a multi-million-dollar budget allowed me to keep it simple, introducing symbolism, making bold choices, and taking risks,” he said.

Don’t let the scary math warning stop you. Watching this character-driven play was satisfying, like solving a tough riddle or a Sudoku puzzle.

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” runs through March 15 at Theatre Harrisburg, Krevsky Center, 513 Hurlock St., Harrisburg. For more information and tickets, visit https://www.theatreharrisburg.com/.

The Week that Was: News and features around Harrisburg

March 6, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda and Maddie Conley

The Salvation Army building in Midtown Harrisburg

This past week, you may have been focused on the many important national new stories. Still, plenty was happening locally, too. If you missed some of our coverage, we have it all listed and linked below.

Arts blogger Bob took a trip out of town to see a stunning, sprawling exhibit in historic Milton, Pa. In his column, find out what’s hanging there, and he also has some ideas closer to home.

Gamut Theatre Co. has a new show this month, the classic drama, “An Enemy of the People.” Our theater reviewer attended opening night to take in the play’s timely, powerful message. Click here to read her review.

Harrisburg University is revising its plan for a new building in downtown Harrisburg, removing a 10-story hotel from the proposal. Find out why and what comes next by reading our online news story.

Harrisburg University recently debuted a testing lab, with ambitions to grow the facility to benefit both students and businesses. Check out our online story to find out more about the initiative and where you’ll soon find the testing center.

Music in the Harrisburg area has improved by leaps and bounds, says our music writer. Her magazine column reveals which shows are worth your time this month.

Sandwiches by ShakeDown has debuted in the Broad Street Market, with a new concept from the owners of the former barbecue favorite. Get a taste of what they’re up to in our online story, which also has an early (metaphorical) Easter egg for hungry fans.

Salvation Army Harrisburg has been trying to sell its Midtown building for five years, and an interested buyer has finally emerged. Find out what the proposed developer plans to do and how his concept has been greeted.

Sara Bozich always has something fun up her sleeve, and this weekend is no exception. Pick and choose from her long list of events, which contains something for every taste.

Steve Reed served as Harrisburg mayor for 28 years, leaving office as one of the most important, and controversial, figures in city history. Now that Reed has passed, our editor, in his monthly column, takes another look at his legacy.

The Painted Word is our quarterly review of the fine arts scene in and around Harrisburg. This month, our columnist went to school—literally—with a roundup of exhibits at area colleges.

Zeroday Brewing Co. has a lot on its plate—and in its taps. TheBurg broke the news last weekend of a major expansion for the Harrisburg-based company. Find out what’s brewing in one of our most-read online stories of the past year.

Do you receive TheBurg Daily, our daily digest of news and events delivered right to your email inbox? If not, subscribe here!

Harrisburg University revises, scales back building proposal as hotel plan folds

March 6, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

The HU building site at S. 3rd and Chestnut streets in downtown Harrisburg

A new Harrisburg University building now will be exclusively educational, as the university has eliminated the proposed hotel portion of the project.

In an interview on Friday, HU President Eric Darr said that the university had to remove the planned 197-room hotel from the project because their hospitality partner, Harrisburg-based HHM, also known as Hersha, had difficulty obtaining financing for the construction.

“Everyone agreed that the demand study demonstrated the need for a hotel,” Darr said. “But [HHM’s] finance partner believed that they couldn’t get the return on investment that they required.”

As a result, the downtown building now will be used exclusively by HU for its health sciences programs, simulation labs and other academic needs, serving about 1,000 students.

The building size also has been reduced by about one-third. It now will be around 11 floors and contain some 260,000 square feet of space. Because the building is smaller, the primary construction material will change from concrete to steel, Darr said.

The final design is still being tweaked and will be unveiled publicly on Tuesday at an emergency meeting of the Harrisburg Planning Commission, which must approve the revised building plan. City Council then also must pass it.

Last year, both the planning commission and council approved the original plan for the HU/hotel tower.

When first proposed, HU had hoped its building would be the tallest in Harrisburg, clocking in at over 30 stories. However, largely due to escalating construction costs, the university began scaling down the project, eventually settling on a 17-story building with an adjoining 10-story hotel.

Darr said that, ideally, he would have preferred giving Hersha more time to find financing for the proposed 120,000-square-foot hotel. However, by late 2019, HU decided it couldn’t wait any longer, needing to move forward on its portion of the project to meet its schedule for bond financing and construction, he said.

“Last fall, we decided we were done,” Darr said. “We started into a redesign phase just focused on educational space.”

Another view of the cleared HU building site

With the demise of the hotel plan, the third proposed piece of the project, a restaurant, also is being scrapped, he said.

HU has already cleared the site at S. 3^rd and Chestnut streets, but hasn’t yet started to build the structure, estimated now to cost about $100 million. Assuming the revised development plan passes muster with the city, HU expects the building to begin to take shape this summer and be completed in late 2021.

“From our perspective, we still believe that there’s a great need for a new hotel in the city and hope that someone can pull it off,” Darr said.

Bob’s Art Blog: Out of Town and Midtown Art

March 6, 2020 | by Bob MacGinnes

Borrowing the line from W.P. Kinsella’s book, Shoeless Joe (Jackson) and the film version aka (Field of Dreams), “If you build it, he will come,” also applies to other fields of endeavor like art.

The artist and art visionary Brice Brown of Milton, Pa., and New York City adopted that same philosophy when he opened the Milton Art Bank (MAB) in May 2017. More than just a gallery or a museum, MAB is also a destination for dreamers that operates out of a converted bank building in Milton’s historic downtown.

Offering art in all its forms, MAB cuts a broad swath across multiple disciplines, including paintings, sculpture, dance, performance art, music, installations and even historical surveys as part of its repertoire. Brown is a firm believer in the ethos that, if you build it, they will come.

He’s now casting a bigger net to lure the fish from surrounding ponds. Milton finds itself strategically close to State College (70 miles), Harrisburg (50 miles) and neighboring Lewisburg just five miles away.

Northumberland County lends its country charm to a cosmopolitan collective that recently unveiled a monumental show, “Black/White,” curated by Brown and running through April 30. Visiting the Art Bank on a Thursday afternoon, we were given a guided tour by Sabrina Wilson, director, and her assistant, Ben Stieler.

“Black/White” sounds like either/or but also finds a partner in the mix of the two in the gray areas of shadow and substance. The exhibit explores the yin and yang of “binary opposition,” covering an epochal transit of time from 1400 BCE to 2019, a span of almost 3,500 years. The exhibit explodes the myth that black and white are mutually exclusive entities (a dichotomy in terms) as in the end their attraction and repulsion co-exist in perfect harmony. It’s counter-intuitive to think of one without the other. It is like night without day; good in the absence of evil; and light without dark. The pantheon of artists represented reads like a “who’s who” of A-list artists, both past and present. The allure of the show draws its mystique from the stellar cast including Man Ray, Pablo Picasso and Henri de Toulouse-Latrec. Among the two dozen-plus rounding out this compendium of creatives are modern-day artists Willem de Kooning, who adds a jolt of color to the mix. Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood and Jasper Johns round out the quartet.

Art critic Lance Esplund lights the way in prose, framing the works in illuminating terms. From a curatorial perspective, Brown has created a tour de force show with “Black/White.” The ebb and flow of polar opposites and the commingling of the two create a rhythm purely its own. The walk through time is unrivaled for riveting attention to the works.The exhibit is enhanced by the spacious layout and open floor format, allowing the art to breathe and stand alone or as part of a continuous thread, weaving its way into the conscience of its audience. All art mediums are represented and given their due. Photography, paintings, sculptures, ceramics and textiles combine to create a powerful visual and provide a master class in art appreciation. Highlights of the show include Piero Fornasetti’s ink-on-paper titled “Wallpaper” from 1955. Jim Dines collective ensemble of six lithographs entitled “Crash” are large and bold portrayed in black ink.

“Black/White” is the sum of all its parts, shining a new light on black and its absence of visible light, while white is the all encompassing presence of light. Together, they form a symbiotic relationship that provides the best of both worlds. Apart, they provide the space between, like songwriter Dave Matthews wrote, “We’re strange allies, with warring hearts, what a wild eyed beast you be, the space between.” That is the very essence of the love/hate relationship which is its flip side. Then, too are “the wicked lies they tell each other.”

“Black White” promotes the push/pull; attraction/repulsion theme to its desired end. Somewhere, somehow, they find a common ground shading the gray areas with that space between. Sometimes in rare instances a shout, but more often, a whisper…like Matthews concluded, somewhere “between the head and heart.”

“Black/White” runs through April 30 at Milton Art Bank, 23 S. Front Street, Milton. Hours are Thursday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m., free to the public. For more information, visit their website.

Pictured above:
“Untitled,” oil on newspaper, by Willem de Kooning
“Wallpaper,” by Piero Fornasetti, 1955

Part II Midtown Art Events/Spring Ahead

Susquehanna Art Museum at the Marty: Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Negro League Baseball
Opening day for Major League Baseball is still a month away, but baseball purists can get their fix early at SAM with the 100th anniversary tribute to the Negro National Baseball League in its “Separate and Unequaled” artistic trip down memory lane. It includes a nod to Harrisburg’s own Giants that operated as part of the Eastern Colored League from 1924 to 1927. The exhibit opens this weekend at SAM. Play ball!

Susquehanna Art Museum is located at 1401 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg.

Millworks/Deja Vu?
It’s that time of the month again. Before you set the clock ahead Saturday night, celebrate the early arrival of spring with the Millworks “First Saturday” on March 7 from 2 to 5 p.m. for an afternoon of art, food and drink at the restaurant and gallery. Meet the artists on hand and see what’s “cooking” for spring in the gallery and in the kitchen.

The Millworks is located at 340 Verbeke St., Harrisburg.

Walke this way at Zeroday
A sneak preview for a 3rd in the Burg event on March 20 may get you to walk this way… A one man show from Ted Walke of Gallery on Second can be found at Zeroday Brewing Co. Breakout the 3-D glasses on hand at the brewpub to view anaglyphs in filtered form, typically red and cyan. Who knew “shades” of the 1950s would return? Perhaps Zeroday will be showing “The Creature From the Black Lagoon” in its 3-D format.

Zeroday Brewing Co. is located at 250 Reily St., Harrisburg.

Harrisburg University fortifies testing capabilities, curriculum with new lab, new facility

March 6, 2020 | by Maddie Conley

Student interns work at HU’s current User Experience Center, which soon will move to a new location on S. 3rd Street in Harrisburg.

Harrisburg University recently launched a new lab with the goal of giving students studying interactive media a platform to learn through real-world experience.

In the “User Experience Center,” students and faculty work with outside clients to test their products for user friendliness through data collection, analyses and generating reports, explained the director of the center, Adams Greenwood-Ericksen.

“Generally, what we do is make stuff work better,” he said. ‘We want students to get experience doing the work.”

The center goes hand-in-hand with the interactive media major, which has three concentrations students can hone in on: advanced media production, interaction and experience design, and purposeful game design.

From this major, five student interns test clients’ video games, websites, education software and other products and receive suggestions for improvements. The process for one client usually takes one or two weeks and in the end, students are left with experience and a resume booster.

The interactive media major has already doubled in undergrad enrollment since the three concentrations were added and with the center being constructed, it is expected to grow even more, explained Tamara Peyton, assistant professor of interactive media.

However, Peyton added that the program is also about giving back to Harrisburg.

“We are investing back in the area and augmenting workforce development in the region,” she said.

Other than Harrisburg University’s User Experience Center, Peyton knows of only two others in the nation. One is at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Fla., where Greenwood-Ericksen taught before coming to Harrisburg. In fact, Greenwood-Ericksen brought much of HU’s current client base with him when he relocated here.

While the team is servicing many large-scale national and international clients currently, Greenwood-Ericksen mentioned they want to take on more local clients.

Coming late spring, HU will begin operating the User Experience Center out of new space on S. 3rd Street, further expanding the university’s footprint downtown. With rooms for testing and researching, this will allow them to expand their staff and take on more clients.

“We want to be a resource for locals,” Greenwood-Ericksen said. “The idea is to promote connections.”

Harrisburg University’s User Experience Center will be located at 10 S. 3rd St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit https://harrisburgu.edu/hu-launches-user-experience-center/.

Sliced Right: ShakeDown ups the sandwich game at Broad Street Market

March 5, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

Lauren Hunt, Chris Heilig and Sarah Heilig get ready for the lunch rush at Sandwiches by ShakeDown.

First came the smoke, now comes the toast.

Last weekend, a hungry crowd greeted the first weekend for Sandwiches by ShakeDown, with people gathering eagerly around the newest food stand in Harrisburg’s Broad Street Market.

Many long-time fans came to see—and, more importantly, taste—the latest concept by Chris and Sarah Heilig, who ran the much-loved ShakeDown BBQ in Grantville for eight years.

What would these long-time purveyors of smoked meats put between two slices of bread?

“I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I heard they were opening in the market,” said customer Maggie Ricketts, before tackling the Ranch Hand, a staggering roast turkey, bacon and cheddar concoction and one of the stand’s five signature sandwiches.

As he geared up on Thursday morning for his second long weekend at the market, Chris Heilig said that he’s been pleasantly surprised by the reaction so far.

“It was a good, positive response,” he said, as he sliced fragrant blocks of provolone cheese and chopped up heads of lettuce. “Everyone who got our food seemed to enjoy it.”

Most customers last saw the Heiligs last year in their then-usual place, behind the counter of ShakeDown, which had become an out-of-the-way pilgrimage for fans of smoked brisket, pork and chicken.

Chris said that they tried to make the business work, but the remote location was difficult and running a small barbecue restaurant was taxing.

Meanwhile, they fell in love with the Broad Street Market, spending more and more time there. They were impressed by the ever-larger crowds and by the market’s renaissance over the past few years.

“We wanted to have a more centralized location than in Grantville,” Chris said. “The revitalization of the market was very attractive to us.”

So, they jumped at the opportunity after learning that a stand would be available—the former Mel’s BBQ in the stone building. But they wouldn’t be serving barbecue there. They wanted to do something simpler and more manageable, opting for sandwiches.

“We came in here and thought—what does the market need?” said Chris, adding that he welcomed a break after years spent in front of his enormous, 1,000-gallon smoker.

The Ranch Hand, a signature sandwich at Sandwiches by ShakeDown

The couple, he said, ate a lot of sandwiches outside of work, so they set to create an interesting, yet simple menu. They tested concepts on friends and family before coming up with five signatures sandwiches, including two carryovers from ShakeDown BBQ—the Ranch Hand and the VooDoo Chicken Salad.

For those who don’t eat meat, the stand also offers a vegetarian sandwich and a couple of salad choices.

“We like to eat healthier, too,” Sarah said.

Despite the couple’s emergence in the Broad Street Market, ShakeDown fans may still be regretting the loss of their favorite barbecue joint. For those folks, Chris is urging patience.

Shakedown is partnering with Zeroday Brewing Co. to open a restaurant next year at the new Susquehanna Union Green, a mixed-used town center development beginning to rise in Susquehanna Township. Chris wouldn’t state exactly what he plans there, but he left a tease.

“Let’s just say that we’re not done with wood-fired cooking and smoking,” he said.

He added that they’re considering hauling out the old mobile smoker for a future 3^rd in the Burg or two once the weather warms up. In the meantime, they’re settling into their new lives in the Broad Street Market, where several friends already have stands.

“It’s so cool to be part of something like this,” Chris said, looking around the market, as his fellow vendors began to prepare for the long weekend ahead, with more big crowds to feed. “The energy here is more our speed.”

Sandwiches by ShakeDown is located in the stone building of the Broad Street Market in Harrisburg. For more information, visit their Facebook page.

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