Don't Ever Change

The owners of Old City's Chloe celebrate a decade of being themselves.

by Drew Lazor

[ perfect ten ]

Neal Santos

THE DUO: Mary Ann Ferrie and Dan Grimes, owners and co-chefs of Chloe at Second and Arch. One of the first BYOBs to make a mark in Philly, the restaurant is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.

Ten years in the restaurant game is an eternity, a high mark very few food-and-beverage pros have the fortune of reaching. Most restaurants fail. So how does a tiny BYOB that doesn't advertise, doesn't take reservations, won't accept credit cards and hasn't changed its core menu since the beginning survive? And thrive?

Chloe, Mary Ann Ferrie and Dan Grimes' unassuming restaurant, celebrates a decade in business this Sunday, Nov. 14. They don't have much of anything special planned for the occasion — in fact, they won't even be open, since the low-key husband/wife team serves dinner from Wednesday to Saturday only. Among the first restaurateurs to claim their chunk of Philly's BYO market, Ferrie and Grimes have seen hundreds of high-gloss openings and hundreds of crash-and-burn closings, barely tweaking a thing since starting out. (Up until a few months ago, the last new staff hire the couple made was in 2004.) In a true war zone of a business, where owners chase and covet the next-latest-coolest-newest thing, Chloe quietly wins by not changing at all.

Named for one of the couple's two cats, Chloe sits at Second and Arch, one giant block removed from the Red Bull-and-vodka shitstorm that churns its way through Old City every weekend. The walls and shelves of the candlelit dining room are studded with little gift-shop keepsakes, the simpering bric-a-brac that people have come to identify with Philly BYOs — vintage bottles and pitchers, baskets, an empty crate of Hercules brand exploding powder. On a recent quiet weeknight, couples huddled close at two-tops, pouring each other red and nibbling on housemade hummus. A casually dressed server floated about the room, disappearing through the kitchen doorway and materializing seconds later, the crooks of his arms stocked with steaming plates. Restaurants that look like this have come and gone. A number of things make Chloe resilient.

For starters, Ferrie and Grimes are co-chefs — many assume that he's the cook and she's the front-of-the-house dynamo, like many BYOs past and present. But they're both behind the line — and in fact, no one else has ever cooked a plate here other than these two. If he or she is sick or hurt, they close.

The Restaurant School alums met working at The Latest Dish in 1997 — Ferrie was Grimes' boss — got hitched in '99 and opened Chloe in what was the Italian restaurant Marco's one year later. Plenty of people like to say that working with a loved one is an invitation for trouble, but Ferrie says there's no other way. "Say he's working at Buddakan and I'm working at Distrito — we'd never see each other," she says. "We couldn't have a normal married relationship unless we did it this way."

And each has their specialties at the stove. Chloe identifies as "New American," the slippery descriptor chefs will tell you can mean anything, or nothing. At Chloe, it means Grimes has free rein to rest sushi-grade tuna atop jasmine rice and banana-ginger-soy broth with one hand and stuff bowls full of homemade gnocchi with the other. Ferrie's style is much more down-home — she works the grill, cranking out bestial racks of saucy baby backs with crocks of cave-aged cheddar mac 'n' cheese ("Everybody thinks there's a black Southern grandma," and not a white, rosy-cheeked North Jersey native, "back here making ribs," laughs Grimes) and their signature pizza, scattered with fig jam, Gorgonzola and olive oil. They never, ever switch it up. Grimes hasn't worked the grill station since his Latest Dish days, and if Ferrie were to try her hand at gnocchi, "it would be like rocks on a plate," she assures.

So award Chloe points for consistency in food, a steadfastness that extends past who's cooking it and influences what they're actually cooking — many dishes, from the tuna and ribs plates to the Moroccan-spiced lamb skewer/minted couscous entrée, have been on offer since day one. Regulars would pitch a fit otherwise. The lively nightly specials are where they deviate from the tried and true — a simple, simply awesome plate of tender braised fennel dressed with mozzarella, toasted pine nuts and tomato sherry sauce; a too-much-for-the-money bowl of chicken and dumpling soup that could incinerate even the most insidious autumn chill.

Grimes admits his cheffing mind wanders much more than Ferrie's, which is why it's nice to have a built-in system of culinary checks and balances — his very candid wife. "She's solid — I bend," he says. "So she keeps me solid. [If I say], 'Maybe we should do ... ,' [she says], 'No! Chloe is this. Don't ruin the integrity of it.' ... She's gotta talk me off a cloud sometimes."

She's equally candid about Chloe's unwavering policies: Dinner four nights a week (keeps them sane, she says), and no — that is absolutely no — reservations. ("We appreciate your interest and support but we do not accept reservations," states the restaurant's website, so very politely.) It's been a point of contention with diners for 10 years, but Ferrie's held her ground. Why? "On any Wednesday to Saturday night, you should be able to grab a bottle of wine, grab a dining companion or come by your damn self, and be like, 'I just feel like going to have the ribs tonight at Chloe, so I'm going to go,'" says Ferrie. "You don't need to plan it before."

Enough diners have followed suit over the years to justify this policy, and though the couple recognizes that the economy has screwed with their numbers, a weekend table will surely still come with a wait. Inconvenient? Maybe. But in this flash-bang-fizzle restaurant climate, it's a little reassuring that something that worked in 2000 — that really does seem so long ago — still works just as well today.

"In 10 years, most things have changed," says Grimes of Chloe's run. "A lot of doors have closed — like Mar says, one will close and two more will open up."

This one's been open.

(drew.lazor@citypaper.net)

Chloe, 232 Arch St., open Wed. through Sat., 5-9:30 p.m., 215-629-2337, chloebyob.com.