For years, the corner unit of the Wawa shopping center at Germantown Pike and Joshua Road sat empty. Township planning minutes describe it as the old Roxy Drug Store with a dental office behind it, and they say that end of the building had been vacant "for a number of years." From the Boot now operates out of that space. In the township's review, the Roxy Drug unit carried the 404 Germantown Pike address, while the restaurant's own website lists 400 Germantown Pike as its open location.

Lafayette Hill isn't adding restaurants by putting up new buildings. Over the past year, each new place to eat on this part of Germantown Pike has moved into a room that already existed: a drugstore end cap, a historic inn, and now the restaurant space From the Boot left behind. The Pike is filling its empty rooms, and one restaurant's move is setting up three dining rooms where there used to be one.

One move, three dining rooms

From the Boot opened in 1999. It spent the following decades at 517 Germantown Pike in the Shoppers World Shopping Center, across the street from the township building. MoreThanTheCurve reported that the restaurant closed that location on July 2, 2026, so it could reopen at the Wawa center. The family's farewell post started with "That's a wrap at 517 Germantown Pike!" and thanked guests for "every celebration you've trusted us with."

On October 27, MoreThanTheCurve reported that two restaurants were preparing to open in the spaces From the Boot used to occupy. One is Mighty Dumplings, which calls itself a Chinese restaurant on Instagram. The other is Shizuka, which will serve sushi and ramen. At that point, both interiors were under construction.

Count the rooms and the corridor comes out ahead. The empty end cap now holds a restaurant, and the old address is being built out as two.

What the Wawa end gained

The new space was planned around how From the Boot already operated. In the township's planning review, the applicant was Lafayette Hill Shopping Center, LLC, a Korman company. Its attorney presented a floor plan with the main entrance on Germantown Pike next to Wawa and a separate takeout entrance on the side of the building facing Joshua Road, reached by a new staircase and ramp. The minutes put the new space at roughly 280 to 300 square feet larger than the old one.

The bigger change for regulars is probably the parking. The same presentation explained that the rear lot had been reconfigured to add 24 parking spaces, giving the center 72 in total, with 48 in front and 24 behind the building. If you pick up takeout, you'll want the side door on the Joshua Road end.

A few things stayed the same. MoreThanTheCurve still described From the Boot as a BYOB when it covered the move in July. The restaurant's website now promotes a private event room and delivery catering. WhatNow reported that the Ciaffone family owns the business with partner Robert Devine.

The other end of the same center

A restaurant moving into one end of the Wawa center was followed by an opening at the other end. Boostin' Bowls opened at 428 Germantown Pike in the unit farthest from Wawa, MoreThanTheCurve reported on October 1, with a grand opening scheduled for Saturday, October 3. The shop serves smoothies and acai bowls. Its first location is in Manayunk, and the business was founded in 2017.

With From the Boot at one end and Boostin' Bowls at the other, the center from 400 to 428 Germantown Pike covers a lot of a weekday's errands. The landlord's current tenant roster lists Wawa, From The Boot, Vino's Pizza, Hunan Wok, Toyosu Sushi & Poke, Touch of Class Gifts, Hair Concepts, Lafayette Hill Fabricare Cleaners, Miles Pet Grooming, Marvel Agency and Boostin' Bowls. One unit, Suite 416, is listed as available.

So the next empty room on this side of the Pike is already known, and it's a single suite in the middle of the center.

Sushi on both sides of the township building

Shizuka's menu would overlap with something the Wawa center already has. Toyosu Sushi & Poke is listed there now, so if Shizuka opens across the street with sushi and ramen, the township-building stretch will have Japanese food on both sides of the Pike.

Mighty Dumplings adds Chinese food to a corridor where Hunan Wok has been the familiar takeout name in the Wawa center. MoreThanTheCurve said it would post an update when the two restaurants are closer to opening.

The Pike by address

The best example of this reuse is a few doors down. The list below covers this stretch of Germantown Pike in street-number order:

1. 400 Germantown Pike, From the Boot, in the former Roxy Drug end cap beside Wawa at The Shops at Lafayette Hill
2. 417 Germantown Pike, Nirvana Indian Bistro
3. 428 Germantown Pike, Boostin' Bowls, at the far end of the Wawa center
4. 474 Germantown Pike, Mod India Restaurant, in the former Whitemarsh Valley Inn
5. 517 Germantown Pike, Shoppers World, where Mighty Dumplings and Shizuka are moving into From the Boot's former spaces
6. 539 Germantown Pike, Lassan Indian Traditional

Each of the newest entries on that list, at 400, 474 and 517, moved into an address that already had a history.

Three Indian kitchens inside 125 street numbers

Mod India is the reuse story people tend to forget, mostly because it happened a year ago. MoreThanTheCurve reported in November 2025 that the restaurant had opened at 474 Germantown Pike, the old Whitemarsh Valley Inn. It's the second Mod location, after the original in Glen Mills opened in 2020. Its Lafayette Hill menu is online with ordering, and a January 2026 feature described the location as offering dine-in, takeout and delivery.

That opening put three Indian restaurants between 417 and 539 Germantown Pike. MoreThanTheCurve called Mod the fifth Indian restaurant in the immediate area and noted that four had opened in the previous two years. Nirvana Indian Bistro has the longest history of the group. It opened in Conshohocken in 2013 and moved to Lafayette Hill in 2015. Lassan Indian Traditional opened in Lafayette Hill in 2024. The same report counted New Era Indian Cuisine in Plymouth Meeting, which opened in 2024, and Masala Symphony in Conshohocken, which opened in 2025.

On Lafayette Hill's stretch of the Pike, Nirvana is at 417, Mod India at 474 and Lassan at 539. All three take orders online, and Nirvana and Lassan post their current hours on their own sites. That puts three Indian menus within 122 street numbers of each other, and one of them is in the building that used to be the Whitemarsh Valley Inn.

Where the next opening will show up

So far, every change on this stretch has put a new business into an existing room. That gives you a simple way to guess where the next opening will come from. The likeliest candidates are the two buildouts at 517 and the open suite at 416. When From the Boot moved across the street, the corridor got one restaurant out of a long-vacant end cap and two more out of the space it left behind.

Thinking about how a Lafayette Hill home fits into this part of Germantown Pike, or how close you'd want to be to the Wawa center and the township building? Jamie Erfle follows these openings as they happen and is glad to talk through what each block of the Pike looks like right now. Let's Connect.