The Starr Restaurant Organization is opening temporary pop-up restaurants in Philadelphia to work with different chefs and explore new concepts.
The company is using the space of its former Washington Square restaurant, usually used for special events, to open three-day restaurants complete with appropriate decor, landscaping and special beer, wine and cocktail lists as well as à la carte menus.
“We’re really not making any money, we’ll probably end up losing a bit,” said Ashley Primis, director of special projects for the Starr Restaurant Organization. “But we thought it would be a great way to use our resources to work with new restaurant concepts and new talent.”
The temporary restaurants are staffed by cooks and servers from other Starr restaurants.
“A lot of the people who worked at the first restaurant asked to be involved in the second one,” Primis said.
The first pop-up, opened in June, featured Aimee Olexy of Talula’s Table, a gourmet store in Kennett Square, Pa., about 35 miles from Philadelphia, which serves one farm-to-table dinner for eight to 10 people each night. The popular dinner has a year-long waiting list.
For the Washington Square pop-up, art curator Eileen Tognini brought in old barn doors and weathered kitchen equipment, Primis said. Vegetable plants and herbs were planted outside, she added.
The second pop-up, which will be open July 27-29, will feature the food of Konstantinos Pitsillides, the chef-owner of a local Greek restaurant called Kanella.
Pitsillides, who comes from Cyprus, will expand beyond his normal culinary horizons by serving Middle Eastern small and large plates. Tognini will be installing Greek and Middle-Eastern art while the outside will be landscaped with olive branches, bougainvillea and the like.
Primis said the Talula pop-up sold out about 36 hours after they started taking reservations and the Kanella event, which was announced last Wednesday, had nearly sold out by Friday.
The patio will be available to walk-ins, Primis said.
She said they planned on opening another pop-up in August and one each in October and November.
“We’re seeing what people respond to and seeing how we get along with the chefs. We don’t know if a restaurant concept will come of it, but it would be great if it did,” Primis said. “And if it doesn’t work, three days later it’s gone.”
The Starr Restaurant Organization operates 19 restaurants — 14 in Philadelphia, two each in New York City and Atlantic City, N.J., and one in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — known for their dramatic designs and financial success. They include Morimoto, which has units in Philadelphia and New York, The Continental in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, and Buddakan, which has locations in all three of those cities.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].