Also this issue:

Go Dutch
CP’s occasional summer travel series takes a trip to a bargain-hunter’s dream world.
-Alex Richmond

Boxscore
Rating the week in TV.
-Debra Auspitz, D.A and Frank Lewis

Icepack
-A.D. Amorosi

June 26-July 2, 2003

naked city

firstlook

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

The Parkway Diner

by A.D. Amorosi

In a world of tony eateries complete with their own publicists, sometimes it’s nice to find something simpler, almost accidentally, on your own. Running back and forth to the Free Library, I stumbled onto a place that has long been a neighborhood staple, St. George’s Diner. Something had changed about what used to be one of my post-jaunt haunts. It had recently become, in the hands of new owners, The Parkway Diner. It’s still a classic downtown diner, a neon-laced eatery with a long, squiggly faux-marble counter and swiveling cushioned seats. There are still blueberry muffins and oozing danishes tucked under glass and signs beseeching you to "Ask Your Server About The Chef’s Special." But there’s something else going on -- the new owners not only cleaned up the place, they brought in promoters to open an upstairs lounge and turn the 24-7 diner’s old-school back barroom into some sort of groovy party space.

So you wind past the old, yellowing "Cocktail Lounge" sign and find yourself at the crossroads of the upstairs dance spot and the bar. Downstairs you get a saloon filled with a row of older gentlemen in Sansabelt slacks, digging a jukebox blasting James Brown and Elvis Presley or playing darts. Go up the steps and you're on the dancefloor in a long, narrow room with a parquet floor, dotted with red and yellow '60s go-go lights and pinkish dining tables. Here DJs like Mr. Cisum and Soul-One spin on "Blue Plate Special" Wednesdays. A long, carved wooden bar with a worn-down brass rail stands to one side, a painting of St. George slaying the dragon and an old tin Miller Brewing poster behind it. Along with a DJ booth that doubles as a soda and Hawaiian Punch fountain is a column that holds a silver dumbwaiter, glass porthole and all, in working order. Seems no one yet has gotten boozy enough on either floor to use it. But I'll be back for that Miller, some funky music and a ride.

The Parkway Diner, 20th and Arch sts., 215-568-4939.