Gourmet & Healthy in Gloucester City

Founder Henry George named Chickie's Italian Deli in honor of his mother, whose recipes have inspired a menu of award-winning hoagies and other handcrafted lunch fare. Under a hanging garden of deciduous deli meats, the bustling staff hand-slices every bite to customer specifications. The street-corner eatery's hoagies pack Sarcone's bread with proteins, such as the prosciutto di parma and capicolla of the Chickie Special, buffered by provolone and veggies. The original veggie hoagie's baked eggplant, sautéed broccoli, and roasted peppers with sharp provolone represent the plant kingdom's finest exports since Carrot Top. Fresh salads, soups, and antipasto round out the array of lunch options, and a catering menu introduces the deli's signature hoagies and pepperoni platters to lunching households and businesses.

Amid the Nutrition Station club's cheerful yellow and orange walls, coaches guide clients to slimmer versions of themselves through a wide range of nutritional and fitness programs. The center hosts group fitness classes, including boot camp and Zumba, along with weight-loss challenges, in which participants are encouraged to shed pounds through exercise and nutrition, verses removing their heaviest toe. During one-on-one nutrition sessions, cushy sofas couch nutrition counselors and clients as they discuss healthy meal plans to fit their lifestyles and weight-loss goals. The Nutrition Station's shelves are lined in Herbalife nutritional supplements, and 94 specialty smoothies sprawl across their chalkboard.

In 1911, Attilio Esposito pursued his American dream, opening a storefront butcher shop on South Ninth Street specializing in fine meats. One century later, Attilio's grandsons, Lee and Louis, still man the counter of the bustling Italian Market institution, featured on Food Network's The Best of Butcher Shops. Over the course of that century, the neighborhood shop experienced great expansion and with it a newfound commitment to environmental sustainability: Today the shop sources only naturally grown and minimally processed products.

From the beginning, the Esposito family believed in providing an impressive product above all else, cutting each portion by hand to meet the expectations of five-star restaurant chefs, home cooks, and discerning family dobermans. Additionally, the shop's organic, free-range, or Angus grass-fed beef is aged for 28 days in a climate-controlled chamber for optimal tenderness. Other products include lamb, pork, poultry, and seafood. Further sharing the knowledge their family passed down over generations, Lee and Louis also host free seminars on best practices for prepping their quality meats.

In 1973, George Rude took up residence on Griggstown Quail Farm, then a two-acre plot on which he nourished a handful of quail. He purchased the farm outright in 1992, by which point the acreage had expanded to 75 and now housed thousands of pheasants, chickens, and ducks in addition to descendants of the original quail. The farm continues Rude’s concept today, letting poultry raised free of growth hormones, antibiotics, and mandatory gym class live cage free.

Inside a storefront on the farm’s lush grounds, chef Matthew Sytsema stays hard at work in the Griggstown Farm Market’s USDA-certified kitchen. Famed for its chicken pot pie, the shop’s ready-made eats also encompass desserts—from classic apple pie to strawberry-rhubarb pie—and handcrafted soups. Distributed by New York and New Jersey restaurants, seasonal farmers’ markets, and their primary purveyor, D’Artagnan Inc., their poultry also makes mouths water throughout their area.

Since its humble south Philadelphia beginnings in the 1990s, PrimoHoagies has quickly expanded throughout the region and garnered several awards on the strength of its cold-cut sandwiches, made with Thumann's brand of gourmet meats and cheeses. The shop's robust menu features dozens of specialty hoagies, many of which were created in-house rather than underwater, as is the industry norm. Sharp Italian hoagies teem with prosciutto and genoa salami, and pork Diablo hoagies marry Thumann's homestyle roasted pork with a blend of piquant spices.