Small Businesses Face Big U.S. Open Concerns

Peppers Cafe is one of the small businesses along Haverford Road whose owner is very concerned about what losing a week of regular customers could mean for her business.

The restaurant is in a building that could be described as a cottage, a small cottage. Peppers' own website describes it as tiny. Dining is an intimate experience with the chef working inches from the counter and producing dishes that you might not find at a typical lunch counter.

Kate Rapine is the owner and one of the chefs who prepare your meal while you watch.  If you have a group of more than about six people you won't all fit at the counter.  Peppers offers extensive catering as well as take-out. The current menu is available at the restaurant's website.

Rapine says as much as 70 percent of her customers come in for lunch about once a week. Just like the other business owners along Haverford Avenue, she is hoping customers will come in more than once a week leading up to the U.S. Open.  While police and township officials say Haverford Road will remain open to the businesses during the Open, business owners say getting to them may prove to big a challenge to regulars that their livelihoods depend on.

Click on the video to watch Kate Rapine prepare a specialty of the house with a flare you won't see at most lunch counters.