I hope he doesn’t do a restaurant club, Silk City already has that niche.

let’s see…that’s reasonably close to the new Paesano’s which joined a nearly saturated sandwich market, so I’m guessing either that or he’ll “bring classic french fare” to the italian market, nevermind bibou.

Upscale 50s style burger place.

with a diner like that, it needs to embrace the diner aspect, but with booze too.

late night is key also, Philly lacks a good diner scene.

that big parking lot out front is just begging for outdoor dining

the risk though is the concept or menu prices not being conducive to regular visits.

Rory, if the Broad St. Diner was north of Washington you might have something with the Italian market triangulation; but the real food “neighborhood” he’s in is Devil’s Den, the cluster of southeast asian restaurants along and around Washington, a couple of small hoagie joints, and you got the Pappa John’s and Chinese/American restaurants up on Broad too. It’s far enough from the developing foodie row on Passyunk to not really be in dialogue with them too.

If Starr was being “imaginative” in Starr fashion I see 3 possibilities:

1.) It’s supposedly off the table now, but he’s “cloned” before (i.e. The Continental), so perhaps he’ll do a quick superficial makeover of the Diner shell and bring an “El Rey Sur” to S. Philly. If this were married to say a “Federal Reprieve” (transplanted Ranstead Room), while the Mexican place would be an affront to the actual Mexican restaurants that start popping up like two blocks away, this area does need a good _cocktail_ bar (realistically I know a quality cocktail bar isn’t exactly sustainable in this neighborhood yet, but a Starr venture could thrive on Broad Street traffic tween the stadiums and center city, and the locals who need to walk to James before they start finding things interesting.

2.) “High end diner with RR’s cocktail consultant again” inspired by Hopper’s “Nighthawks” painting. That would be kinda a cool, if the cocktails were more RR than Continental.

3.) Opposite demographic of 2.), but plays off Starr’s latest penchant for ripping off things that have been done to death. Make the diner a giant cheesesteak counter, figuring he could siphon off Pat’s and Geno’s post-game traffic.

It would be frankly stupid for Starr to do something that’s already here in South Philly (gastropub, Mexican, or pho) – then again, it IS Starr, and he usually does what he wants (not hatin’, just sayin’).

Moderately priced Asian or Latin fusion and keeping some of the aesthetics of the diner with an outdoor patio would be rad. I think he could have a cash cow if he went the music venue/club route, too – South Philly completely lacks that.

I’d take an upscale Ramen place. Let Morimoto develop the menu. There is barely anywhere to get Ramen in this town.

A version of the Continental would definitely work but I’m not sure who the clientele would be. The immediate neighborhood isn’t Yuppie enough I don’t think. It would work on E Passyunk.

Whatever he does, I hope he gets rid of that ugly surface parking lot.

There is a liquor application posted in the window now. It says “Chelsea Morning Partners.” I gooogled it but came up short.