Distrito Taqueria (Instagram photo).

Chef Jose Garces, whose well-known restaurant Distrito (40th and Chestnut) serves some delicious Mexican fare but could be damaging to your wallet, has recently revamped the restaurant’s first-floor area and opened a less expensive and “uber casual” eatery, Distrito Taqueria, downstairs. The grand opening of the taqueria was on Thursday.

Here are some items from the taqueria’s menu: tacos (you can choose from chicken, beef, pork, goat barbacoa or tofu) are $3.50 each, extras for additional price; burritos and quesadillas are $9.50. Super nacho is $12 ($9 without meat). An order of guacamole will cost you $8, and salsa is $5. Soups and salads are also served. And the place has a full bar. The full menu can be downloaded here.

Distrito Taqueria is open daily 11:30 a.m. – 10 p.m.

About 35 years ago Roger Harman and a partner opened a small café in a former laundromat at 47th and Chester. They named it The Gold Standard. A few years later they renamed it The Palladium and moved it to Penn’s Arts, Research and Culture House (ARCH) on Locust Walk where it operated for 20 years.

Then, Harman teamed up with Vince Whittacre to open Abbraccio, an Italian restaurant at 47th and Warrington (where the Vietnam Café is now). That closed, but six years ago they were back in business at 48th and Baltimore with a name that saluted the old days, opening The Gold Standard Café, the ever-pleasant coffee shop/restaurant/outdoor bistro that quickly became an institution along that section of Baltimore Avenue.

Now it’s on the market.

“We’re getting tired,” said Harman.

He couldn’t provide too many details on the effort to sell the restaurant, but said that its future will be a lot more clear in a week or two. We’ll keep you posted.

– Mike Lyons

Clarkville restaurant and bar is expected to open at former Best House Pizza space at 43rd and Baltimore in Fall 2015.

Here’s an update on Clarkville, the bar and restaurant planned for Baltimore Avenue across from Clark Park, from co-owner Leigh Maida. The lease for the former Best House Pizzeria space at 43rd and Baltimore was signed in November, and the building owner is still working on renovation and repairs, according to Maida. The renovation work is now expected to be completed early next month, after which Maida and her partners will take possession of the space and start setting up their restaurant.

If everything goes according to plans the restaurant should be open in very early fall, says Maida.

In the meantime, Maida and her partners, Brendan Kelly and Brendan Hartranft, who also own Local 44, are busy working on the menu and getting as much of the details “buttoned up” in advance of taking over the space as possible. By the way, the name of the new restaurant is just Clarkville without “Beer” after it as was reported earlier. “We’ll have a pretty nice draft wine list at Clarkville, as well as a very steady flag-ship centric craft beer list,” Maida says.

The restaurant also inherits a giant pizza oven and dough mixer that came with the space. “Those items will be put to use immediately in the preparation of a pizza-like offerings,” Maida said in an earlier statement.

Finally, check out Clarkville’s storefront rendering below.

Photo by Annamarya Scaccia / West Philly Local.

48th Street below Spruce is becoming a sort of culinary hub with a number of small and start-up artisan food businesses calling the block and its Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises home.

The Enterprise Center, which supports local minority entrepreneurs, was already providing a helping hand for start-up businesses, but with the unique nature of the food industry and the lack of a kitchen facility at the initial site, there was a need to create a subsidiary. The Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises opened in 2012.

The businesses operating out of the Center or using its state-of-the-art shared-use commercial kitchen include:

48th Street Grille
Herban Quality Eats
Really Fresh Vegan
Red Fox Gourmet
Smackaroons
Sugar Philly
Taco Angeleno

“What we found was that there’s a particularly high threshold for food entry for food businesses in Philadelphia. It’s an expensive and complicated endeavor. An incubator kitchen lowers that threshold making it easier for food businesses to get their start in the city,” says Brett Heeger, Food System Director at The Enterprise Center.

The Culinary Center’s shared-use commercial kitchen (Photo from theenterprisecenter.com)

Heeger broke the process down to three steps: business development, product refining and access to capital. The Enterprise Center has been known for bringing in influential guest speakers and advisors over the years, which have inspired culinary entrepreneurs and many first time business owners. The products are refined with the help of a panel of scientists from the Drexel Culinary food sciences along with extensively trained chefs, using commercial grade equipment that they would not have had access to otherwise. Finally, the businesses are given access to grants and seed funding which is exclusive to small businesses that are a part of the program.

The Culinary Center is located at 310 S. 48th Street in the Garden Court neighborhood. The Center has improved the neighborhood through several ways: There were physical improvements to the area, the site where the center is currently located was originally an abandoned supermarket. There has also been financial empowerment within the neighborhood, as the center also tried to hire candidates from West Philadelphia. The idea is to increase community engagement and involvement.

On Tuesday, May 19, the Culinary Center will host the 2nd annual “Cooking Up Success!” culinary competition among local food entrepreneurs. The winners will be awarded up to $50,000. Early bird tickets ($75) are available until April 17. To buy tickets, go here.

– Rana Fayez

Photo courtesy of William Street Common.

Anyone who has worked in the restaurant industry knows how unpredictable earning a living can be, especially with varying beliefs about tipping. Bottom line: for a server or a bartender, income can be completely arbitrary according to how customers are feeling at any given moment.

Restaurateur Avram Hornick wants to take the guesswork out of the tipping process with his new venture at 39th and Chestnut, William Street Common, which opened last week. He expects it to attract a crowd different from his other spots in the area, such as Morgan’s Pier.

“First, the whole purpose is social conversation,” said Hornick. “West Philly; what’s interesting about it is its diversity. I wouldn’t call it a melting pot, more like a jambalaya. The parts are separate. I would like to make the mixing of these parts possible here.”

William Street Common features long communal tables, beer garden style.  Continue Reading

We’re happy to pass along some recent news from the West Philly food and restaurant world.

Renovations Underway at Rx The Farmacy

(Left to right): Danielle Coulter, Ross Scofield, and Tim Blair.

Some Spruce Hill residents and Rx The Farmacy (Facebook page) fans may have noticed that the restaurant has been closed for several days, so we got in touch with one of the owners, Ross Scofield, to see what’s going on. Turns out they are doing renovations to the kitchen. “A lot of things/equipment in the kitchen were left over from Rx,” Ross explains. ” Now that the Farm is on a steady track, we are taking the opportunity to update our little cooking space.”

Ross and his partners, Danielle Coulter and Tim Blair, who now also manage the recently opened The Barn on Baltimore, are taking the opportunity to renovate the kitchen during the slower winter season. Ross also shared some of his plans for the busy spring season.

“Spring time is a busy time for The Farmacy with UPenn having graduation and the neighborhood coming out for the nice weather. I want to have a new outside seating arrangement in place. The Farm needs a nice, big sign out front. New plates, flatware, and glasses are all needed. The kitchen also needs to be “repositioned” to handle the volume of brunch service,” Ross wrote us in an email.  Continue Reading