Pay what you can, or change what you do: How Philly restaurants are surviving

💌 Love Philly? So do we. Let’s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. Fourteen years ago Marti Lieberman launched Mac Mart, a fast-casual mac and cheese food bowl restaurant based on a few family recipes. And for a while Lieberman did great. She moved from a food truck, to a brick and mortar and even franchised. At one point she had a staff of over 30 people. “We were flying high,” said Lieberman. But last January, Lieberman shrunk Mac Mart, closing her franchises, letting go of her employees and moving into a small kiosk in Center City. Looking back, she sometimes wishes she never started. “If I had to go back, I’d choose a 9 to 5 where someone cuts my check for me, my weekends are spent with my family and my friends, I m not missing birthday parties or weddings or funerals or big life events,” said Lieberman. “I would choose more of me.” Lieberman later added that she enjoys what she does at Mac Mart, which she now runs with just her husband, bu