How to Pitch Stories to Eater Philly

Eater Philly is a local news site based in Philadelphia that reports on restaurants and bars, chefs, dining and dining trends, food pop-ups and food trucks, and the business of restaurants throughout the city. It is part of the Eater network and under the Vox Media umbrella.

What We’re Looking For

At Eater Philly, we’re mainly focused on publishing travel-related pieces and local guides and maps. We’re always looking for insightful local pitches from reporters on a range of topics related to dining out in Philly and occasionally other nearby regions such as New Jersey. We are especially interested in working with those whose voices are often underrepresented in media and those with knowledge of particular food cultures that tend to be overlooked in local and national media landscape.

Eater Philly currently accepts pitches on the following:

Dining and drinking maps, guides, and food crawls related to neighborhoods, cities, and cuisines in the metro area and in cities around Pennsylvania. Examples:

• Philly’s Essential French Restaurants
• All the Philly Restaurants Referenced on Abbott Elementary
• 22 Places to Get Excellent Vegan Food in Philadelphia
• Where to Eat the Freshest Seafood in Philly
• Where Philly’s Cambodian Community Leaders Go to Eat
• 20 Bakeries for the Most Delicious Pastries, Cakes, and Baked Goods in Philly
• Where to Eat in Fishtown

Please note that Eater Philly is not focusing on reported news and features on local restaurants, bars, chefs, food trends, etc. at this time but may consider these in the near future.

Do’s and Don’ts

Writers preferably have expertise in journalistic reporting as well as a passion for the pitched topic. Because of limited budget, Eater Philly is very specific about the pitches we accept, which should be geared toward a broad audience visiting Philly or looking to find great places to try in their neighborhood. For example, a hyper-specific map of corn dogs would be less likely to be accepted than, say, a map of essential vegetarian restaurants (unless, of course, corn dogs are a local delicacy).

The site does not accept pitches regarding recipes or food holidays, nor does it conduct restaurant reviews. Please note that we’re currently assigning stories two months out.

The author should expect to and must be comfortable with being edited in line with Eater’s editorial standards. Generally, we do not assign stories to people who are primarily employed by the restaurant industry with the exception of Eater Voices.

Plan Your Pitch

All map and guide pitches should include a subject matter with a clear angle for why Eater Philly readers should care (Read: Why is the story relevant to the dining scene in Philly?). Writers are encouraged to read the Eater ethics statement to identify any potential conflicts of interest.

Some stories may not be right for our local audience but could still potentially be a good fit for our national site. Check out Eater.com’s pitch guidelines for more information.

Send pitches to philly@eater.com. Please provide a short summary of who you are and your professional writing background. In your pitch, we ask that you clearly explain your angle on the topic and tell us why you’re uniquely positioned to report the story. Please also include links to prior work. For maps, please include a suggested angle and a few locations that you would include.

We try to answer all pitches that come in, but if you don’t hear from us in a couple of weeks, feel free to send a follow-up email. If it’s a truly timely pitch, please let us know!

Tips and press releases are also welcome if you have an idea for a story but don’t want to write it. For sensitive information, there are several ways to reach out, detailed here.