May 12-18, 2005

cityspace

House Parties

TAP DANCING: There are plenty of ways to fill your mug at the Pour House in East Falls. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Two new watering holes want to make you feel like you're at home. That is, if home has leather banquettes and Quizzo.

by A.D. Amorosi

I know. A room is not a house and a house is not a home. Good. If I wanted to stay home in a room in my house, this story would never have gotten written and I'd be describing office walls filled with Pasolini and Cassavetes posters, backstage passes for shows I can't remember and fist holes. But I digress.

If you're willing to go that extra mile and call something "house," there probably is an element of curled-up coziness to it.

For Public House, cushiness comes in the form of ersatz Americana with a tattered stars-and-stripes pattern draping the entire length of its floor-to-ceiling columns. It's a little bizarre to see the American flag used as a design motif for something not clearly marked for, say, country music or Army registration. But one could imagine the red, white and blue as part of the conservative airiness of Public House's high ceilings (about 20 feet), glass-and-slate storefront, exposed brick walls and retro wood grains in the trim and shelving.

I mention conservative because Public House is on the urban-animal, young-professional tip — solid, linear, but accented a bit for vintage feel. Opened by owners Brian Harrington and Gary Cardi with consulting executive chef Terry White (exec Anthony DiStefano), this place isn't for high-level bosses who like their old scotches poured neat at Le Bec, though there are burly back booths near the kitchen that seem stark enough for "the big meeting." Instead, it suits the second- and third-tier execs who love them, types who have heard nothing but stories about how yuppie bars like Carolina's and Cutters were great pick-up places.

Seventy feet of granite bar greet you alongside sturdy wood-and-leather banquettes — some semicircular, some squared out — upholstered in a suede-corduroy material with a tear-drop pattern that line both the main dining area and the elevated nonsmoking section. It looks good housed with distressed amber walls. With phosphorous half-moon lighting above, smokers can hang toward the front in the lounge, a very private space with walls of burnt sienna and filled with red- and camel-colored settee seating.

It's all very solid and stuffy, but in a way that can be busted up by drinking or noshing on White's splashy takes on contemporary American fare.

Lately, it seems like it's nothing but net for newly rustic-chic enclave of restaubars, galleries and shops in the Kelly Drive region once inhabited by dealers and wheelers. The sleek stone-and-steel Verge with its lean, boxy dimensions sits nicely near the newly opened Buckets Bar and Grill, an urban cowboy joint that serves most meals in buckets. But the coziest, homiest spot to drop though is the Pour House Tavern, a new somewhat upscale pub that once served area fishermen and their fishwives. Yet, no one goes fishing anymore, unless this newly yuppifed neighborhood thinks of the Dad Vail Regatta as a water sport worthy of thigh-high rubber wading boots. Then again, Pour House Tavern is so casually dressed perhaps the men could get away with that, or even flip-flops, while the gals (as I witnessed) carry their Badgley Mischka clutches or wear Chanel heels.

Directly across from the East Falls firehouse, the windowed front is grounded with a stucco bottom and topped with a 3-D carved wood sign of the Pour insignia. It gives you a perfect peek at 30 feet of mahogany bar with old-school beer taps that lead your eye and stomach toward a back dining room. Bartenders seem to know even the newest habitues' names. Despite the addition of plasma TVs, co-owners David Smith, Tony Altomare (both of Tony A's pizzerias), George Flocco and Ryan Bodo (both formerly of The Blarney Stone) have created a place that makes you scream out, in a nice way, "Nothing fancy." Or "friendly."

The upstairs hang — called "Upstairs at The Pour House" — is an exposed brick space where vintage sporting prints encircle high-top tables while its windows (and ledge) allow you visual access to Kelly Drive. "Upstairs" has a loungier college feel with a pricey martini menu sure to appeal to the Philadelphia University/Saint Joe's crowd surrounding East Falls, nights like Wednesday's "Car Bomb" special (Guinness with a shot of whiskey dropped in), cheap cheesesteaks and Quizzo Tuesdays.

Public House, 2 Logan Sq. (between Arch and Cherry sts.), 215-587-9040. Pour House Tavern, 4213 Ridge Ave., 215-848-2770.