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7 Towns In The Poconos With Thriving Local Businesses

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7 Towns In The Poconos With Thriving Local Businesses


The Poconos is a spectacular subrange of the Appalachian Mountains. It is located in the northeastern United States between the Coal Region of Pennsylvania and the borders of New York and New Jersey. Although known for its nature, the Poconos contains communities with countless commercial attractions. From a curiosity shop to a candy cottage to an NYC-style street grill to a winsome winery to an award-winning brewery, the Poconos’ settlements have something to offer every type of tourist. Here are seven to visit sooner rather than later.

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

The historic downtown of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Editorial credit: zimmytws / Shutterstock.com.

Named after the legendary multi-sport athlete, Jim Thorpe is a versatile community in the Pennsylvania Poconos. In addition to natural wonders like Lehigh Gorge State Park, which can be explored via the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway, this 4,500ish-person borough offers access to amazing shops, bars, restaurants, and architecture. The Emporium Of Curious Goods sells curious goods to curious residents and curious tourists; the Stone Row Pub & Eatery is a progressive space peddling craft cocktails and boutique dishes; Tommy’s Subs is a shop serving diverse and delicious sandwiches; and Molly Maguire’s Pub & Steakhouse is a vibrant bar, restaurant, and historic landmark, since it operates in the Hotel Switzerland, which is the oldest commercial building in town. Tours of such attractions are provided by the Jim Thorpe Trolley Co.

Honesdale, Pennsylvania

Local businesses on Main Street, Honesdale, Pennsylvania
Local businesses on Main Street, Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Editorial credit: Nina Alizada / Shutterstock.com.

Like Jim Thorpe, Honesdale is a Pennsylvania borough with roughly 4,500 residents. It provides peregrinations into Poconos preserves such as Prompton State Park, plus dozens of booming businesses. They range from a bar and grill called the Twisted Rail Tavern to a hip hot dog joint called Paulie’s Hot Dogs to an eclectic bakery called Camp Umpy’s Bagels & Stuff to a brewery and eatery called Here & Now Brewing Company to a herbal gift shop called Mount Pleasant Herbary. Honestly, Honesdale’s best business might be Native, an upscale yet rustic restaurant on Main Street. Venison tartare, smoked duck rueben, Spanish octopus, seared noble road, and ricotta cavatelli are just some of the dishes served with local ingredients in a low-key space. Go native in Honesdale.

Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

Downtown Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
Downtown Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Image credit: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States via Wikimedia Commons.

Stroudsburg is a southern Poconos settlement of around 6,000 people. Its population is nearly matched by its attractions, which include the Olde Engine Works, Cure Cafe, Teddy’s University 1984, Café Duet, Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop, NYC Street Grill, Sherman Theater, Compton’s Pancake House, Carroll & Carroll Booksellers, Quench Cafe and Juice Bar, Sarah Street Grill, Benvenuto Pizza & Italian Restaurant, and Fitzpatrick’s Irish and Celtic Store. Also, if you never pegged the Poconos as a winederland, let Stroudsburg change your mind and stimulate your senses with Tolino Vineyards, The Renegade Winery, and RAW Urban Winery & Hard Cidery.

Milford, Pennsylvania

Downtown Milford, Pennsylvania.
Downtown Milford, Pennsylvania. Image credit: DenSmith via Flickr.com.

Consistently ranked one of the coolest towns in America, Milford is actually a borough in the northeastern Pennsylvania Poconos. Over 1,000 residents and many thousands of tourists enjoy natural attractions like Raymondskill Falls, historic landmarks like the Grey Towers National Historic Site, and numerous highly-rated businesses. Among them are the Waterwheel Cafe, Bakery & Bar, which is a triple threat of tastiness; Spoonful Soups & Eats, whose made-from-scratch meals include food bowls, paninis, soups, and pastries; Earthly Treasures, a “metaphysical shop” that sells everything from crystals to incense to jewelry to statues; and the Candy and Gift Cottage of Milford, which peddles bottle caps, Beemans gum, and Abba-Zaba, among many other gifts/sweets. One can stay at The Historic Dimmick Inn while marveling at Milford’s marvels.

Narrowsburg, New York

View of the Main Street in Narrowsburg, New York.
View of the Main Street in Narrowsburg, New York. Editorial credit: Alizada Studios / Shutterstock.com.

Narrowsburg is narrow in population but thick in attractions. This 380ish-person community straddles the border between Pennsylvania and New York and thus sits between the Pocono Mountains and the Catskill Mountains. Both ranges offer hiking, climbing, biking, camping, skiing, snowboarding, swimming, boating, paddling, birding, fishing, hunting, and all-around sightseeing. Let Narrowsburg be your launch pad for outdoor recreation and also a refuge for rest and libation. The Heron Restaurant provides great cocktails, The Tusten Cup provides great coffee, The Laundrette provides great pizza, the Narrowsburg Farmers’ Market provides great produce, and One Grand Books provides great reads. Lastly, the Fort Delaware Museum can make you feel like a pioneer with its recreated 18th-century settlement. Demonstrations are offered of gardening, smithing, baking, weaving, candle making, cannon firing, and other staples of colonial life.

Hawley, Pennsylvania

Local businesses in Hawley, Pennsylvania
Local businesses in Hawley, Pennsylvania. Image credit: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States via Wikimedia Commons.

Located southeast of Honesdale and southwest of Narrowsburg, Hawley is a hub of Poconos activity. This borough sits on the Lackawaxen River, which runs into the 13-mile-long Lake Wallenpaupack and its 52 miles of shoreline for swimming, sunbathing, and sightseeing. After diving into the water and exploring the surrounding greenery, a tourist can unwind with a hoagie from the family-owned Lake Wally Cafe, a burger from casual Pat’s Bar, a “lousy” steak from the eccentric Crazy Country Club, and a beer from the award-winning Wallenpaupack Brewing Company. But you can get almost all those things at The Settlers Inn, a luxurious Main Avenue bed & breakfast in an authentic 1927-built Arts and Crafts-style lodge. It is the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel of Hawley-wood.

East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Image credit: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, via Wikimedia Commons.

A growth on the eastern flank of Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg is actually larger—and arguably livelier—than its host. Nearly 10,000 people call this borough home, while thousands of others call it a fantastic weekend, week, or even a months-long retreat. Weekenders can hit up the Trackside Station Grill & Bar and then crash at the Cherry Valley Manor just south of town; over weekers can set up camp at the Delaware Water Gap-Pocono Mountain KOA and then explore the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; and those months-long mainstayers can enroll at East Stroudsburg University, which is a public institution with about 5,500 students. Regardless of the length of stay, you would be wise to see the Silverback Distillery and the Pocono Indian Museum. The former is the “only mother-daughter distilling duo in the nation crafting high quality, award-winning spirits” and the latter is the “only museum in northeastern Pennsylvania dedicated to showing the history of the Delaware Indian.”

Although the Poconos is famous for its nature, this region in the northeastern United States is full of life in a different way. Its low-key communities have lively, independent businesses like shops, restaurants, bars, breweries, wineries, markets, cafes, and hotels. The best of these can be found in Jim Thorpe, Honesdale, Stroudsburg, Milford, Narrowsburg, Hawley, and East Stroudsburg. Go poking around the Poconos for commercial wonders.

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Pennsylvania

1 injured in hazmat situation at Pennsylvania federal research facility

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1 injured in hazmat situation at Pennsylvania federal research facility


1 injured in hazmat situation at Pennsylvania federal research facility – CBS Pittsburgh

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One person was severely injured at a federal research center in South Park Township.

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Trump's former doctor gives health update, calls out Wray as FBI affirms bullet struck former president

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Trump's former doctor gives health update, calls out Wray as FBI affirms bullet struck former president


A former White House doctor released a letter Friday stating that former President Trump is “rapidly recovering” following the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and that there is “absolutely no evidence” he was hit with “anything other than a bullet.” 

Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, who took issue with testimony given earlier this week by FBI Director Christopher Wray, said “I want to reassure the American people and the rest of the world, that President Trump is doing extremely well.”

Jackson, who is Trump’s former physician, said, “I have continued to monitor his health and well-being, along with his primary care physician, since the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on the evening of July 13th.

“During the Congressional Hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass. There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet,” he added. “Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.”

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Wray did not mention glass in his testimony. He said, “With respect to former President Trump, there is some question about whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.” 

After Jackson’s letter was released, the FBI issued its own statement to Fox News Digital, “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”

“The would-be assassin fired multiple rounds from a relatively close distance using a high-powered rifle, with one bullet striking the former President, and now the Republican Nominee for President, in his right ear,” Jackson continued.

FBI WANTS TO INTERVIEW TRUMP AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: SOURCE

Trump raises his fist after being shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)

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“As a former White House Physician for 14 years, who served during three presidential administrations, and served as the appointed physician for both President Obama and President Trump, I fully understand the global significance of this attempt on the life of the former President and the current Republican Nominee for President,” Jackson added.

“As such, I want to reassure the American people and the rest of the world, that President Trump is doing extremely well,” Jackson concluded. “He is rapidly recovering from the gunshot wound to his right ear. I will continue to be available to assist President Trump and his personal physician in any way they see fit and will provide updates as necessary and with the permission of President Trump.”

TRUMP RALLY BULLET TRAJECTORY ANALYSIS CONTRADICTS FBI ‘SHRAPNEL’ TESTIMONY ON CAPITOL HILL: REPORT

Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service

Trump is seen being escorted off the campaign event stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.   (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)

In an interview Thursday on FOX Business’ “Kudlow,” Jackson said it was “absolutely ridiculous” for Wray to suggest that Trump might not have been struck by a bullet.

“This degrades any level of credibility that this man may have had – after years of weaponizing the FBI and the DOJ against the president,” Jackson said. “It was absolutely a bullet, I examined it. There was a track of a bullet.”

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Jackson also praised the creation of a bipartisan House task force to investigate the Trump assassination attempt.

Donald Trump is moved from the stage at a campaign rally

Trump is pictured after being shot during the campaign rally. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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“We don’t have any confidence in the number one law enforcement agency in this country right now. And if [Wray’s] going to come make statements like that, he better have some evidence of what he’s talking about,” Jackson said. “There was no fractured glass on the teleprompters or anything else.”

The FBI told Fox News Digital Thursday its priority was learning more about the reclusive would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, and his motive.

“Since the day of the attack, the FBI has been consistent and clear that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims,” a spokesperson said. 

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“FBI Director Wray provided extensive congressional testimony on Wednesday about the FBI’s investigation. This was a heinous attack and the FBI is devoting enormous resources to learn everything possible about the shooter and what led to his act of violence.”

Fox News Digital is told the FBI’s Shooting Reconstruction Team was still examining evidence from the scene – including recovered bullet fragments.



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Inside Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s support for private school vouchers – WHYY

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Inside Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s support for private school vouchers – WHYY


In 2015, Shapiro, then a Montgomery County commissioner, gave the Philadelphia Inquirer his assessment of Greenberg’s political and philanthropic work.

“He’s a major employer in the region and he’s wonderfully philanthropic — for Jewish causes, educational causes and other community organizations,” Shapiro told the paper.

Another co-founder of Susquehanna International Group is even more well-known in the world of Pennsylvania school choice advocacy: billionaire Wall Street trader Jeffrey Yass. He’s emerged as a major Republican donor nationally and an inescapable power broker within the commonwealth, despite his nearly nonexistent public profile.

Both Greenberg and Yass have been involved in bankrolling the school choice movement for more than a decade in Pennsylvania.

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“We are not in this to run charter schools, to manage charter schools. This is purely altruistic,” Greenberg told WHYY in 2015, when asked about his support for Williams’ mayoral campaign. “We view this as helping kids have a choice who are trapped in failing, oftentimes violent schools.”

Along with fellow suburban Philadelphia billionaire and SIG co-founder Arthur Dantchik, Greenberg and Yass were at one point the main donors to Students First, a political action committee founded in 2010 to support school choice candidates.

Shapiro accepted $175,000 from that PAC between 2012 and 2016, according to campaign finance records. During that time, he was a Montgomery County commissioner and, by 2016, was running for attorney general.

The donations to Shapiro’s attorney general campaign so troubled Philadelphia’s teachers union that it quietly pulled its endorsement at the last minute, multiple news outlets reported.

The union declined to comment at the time, but a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to Spotlight PA that the union pulled its endorsement over the Students First donations. (The Pennsylvania State Education Association, a larger, statewide teachers union, continued to back Shapiro in that election.)

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During the 2022 gubernatorial race, PACs connected to Yass spent millions during the primary to oppose eventual Republican nominee state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin). One of those PACs, Commonwealth Leaders Fund, ran anti-Shapiro ads during the general election but scaled back then stopped that spending shortly after Shapiro publicly pledged his support for vouchers.

Once elected, Shapiro sought to create such a program as part of the 2023-24 state budget.

“I believe every child of God deserves a shot here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and one of the best ways we can guarantee their success is making sure every child has a quality education,” Shapiro told Fox News in June 2023, late in the state’s budget process.

The remarks preceded the Republican-controlled state Senate’s sudden passage of a budget deal that included $100 million in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition for students in low-performing public districts.

But once the budget reached the state House, Shapiro received hard pushback from the lower chamber’s new Democratic majority. In a politically embarrassing setback, Shapiro agreed to veto the voucher dollars in exchange for the rest of the plan’s passage. That veto led to a nearly six-month budget impasse as state Senate Republicans claimed betrayal.

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In his February budget address this year, Shapiro called on the legislature to again consider vouchers, though a top Republican leader later accused him of being unwilling to use his “bully pulpit” to get such a program across the finish line.

His ongoing support also hasn’t saved him from Yass-funded criticism.

For the past two years, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which does not have to disclose its donors, has spent prodigiously on ads and other lobbying to criticize politicians who don’t support vouchers.

The group, Commonwealth Action, has received significant dollars from the free market Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, according to that group’s most recent filings to the IRS. Commonwealth Partners runs two political action committees that are among the most active in Pennsylvania school choice advocacy, and both are almost entirely funded by Yass.

Between April 2023 and March 2024 — the last recorded filing — Commonwealth Action reported spending more than $973,000 on indirect education lobbying, which includes advertising and other methods aimed at shifting public opinion.

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One video from last summer funded by Commonwealth Action accused Shapiro of “choosing special interests over kids.”

Commonwealth Action is linked to an established conservative organization in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Foundation. Since summer 2023, the exterior of the organization’s Harrisburg building, which is across the street from the state Capitol, has featured ads calling for Shapiro to pass the voucher plan. The foundation is now funding a six-figure newspaper and TV ad campaign.

“You lied, and you turned your back on us again,” Printess Garrett, a Harrisburg mother, says in a TV spot. “The only thing we have for our children is our word, and if we can’t trust in your word, we don’t have anything else.”

Moving forward, political sources told Spotlight PA they expect teachers unions and other public education advocates to be among the most skeptical of a Shapiro vice presidency.

On Wednesday, 28 education advocacy groups from across the country sent an open letter to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris arguing that “it is essential that our President and Vice President be wholly committed to our nation’s public education system and willing to fight against school privatization in all its forms.”

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But to Payton, not considering Shapiro for backing a policy to aid parents in the hunt for what’s best for their kids is a bad choice.

“To blatantly disqualify somebody over something ideological like that is foolish,” Payton said.



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