Oy Story

WATERED DOWN: Hornik promises that the new Drinker's Pub will be "upscale and comfortable," and not as wild as Drinker's Tavern in Old City.
Photo By: Michael T. Regan

How did plans for a nice little kosher spot morph into another Drinker's? God only knows.

by A.D. Amorosi

The name "Drinker's Tavern" inspires thoughts of woozy drunken chuckles in Old City, blurred visions of lawyers and the lawless casually letting their hair down en masse, drinking cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in a dark, mahogany environment with billiard balls clacking, pinball clangings and darts whooshing. It's slumming, the true bucket of blood booziness of the highest, lowest order. You know — fun.

That same down 'n' dirty éclat wouldn't be something you'd align with the Rittenhouse area. That is unless you're Avram Hornik — Four Corners Management boss, owner of Loie, Noche, Bar Noir, SoMa and such — and you've cleaned up and civilized Drinker's nasty, relaxed cool by turning it on its English-pub ass with a brand-new, airier "upscale" version: Drinker's Pub.

The Rittenhouse Drinker's is wider and higher than its Old City sibling. While deer-, bear- and moose-heads stare down from paneled walls topped by tin ceilings and wainescoting, this pub's waitresses wear ripped T-shirts exclaiming "Don't Fuck with Me" and "Come Get Some." While Budweiser globe lamps spin in one corner and Elvises decorate every wall, guys wearing "Crunk or Die" shirts drink 40-ounce bottles of Miller Lite as the brew spills down their chins.

"That was a big part of opening a Drinker's in Rittenhouse; that younger people in this area wanted something upscale, sure, but casual," says Hornik, 32. He knows there are high-end heads who won't touch anything but Cristal but also figures that most people want to do shots and get phone numbers.

Owning the artsy basement boîte Bar Noir certainly prepared Hornik as to how to approach the Rittenhouse area's un-Dolce-and-Dior, beer-and-shot crowd. "Not everyone is looking for something pretentious," says Hornik. "Even lawyers in suits want to have a Pabst. They don't always want something overly fancy."

But this Drinker's adds in games and weird food to the dive-y equation.

"This is great," says performance artist Ira "Needles Jones" Abromovitz, while the bells and buzzers of a brand-new Elvis pinball machine bling on behind a row of heavy wooden booths.

"This sucks," says Jones, as soon as the Presley table sends his balls to pinball hell. While Jones consoles himself with a shot of J…ger from Drinker's 'Meister machine and a PBR shotgun, D'Lynn Larson, a lawyer and Rittenhouse habitue, talks up her neighborhood's new edition.

"I like that it's unpretentious and way comfortable," she says.

Her friend, Michael Cass, a Cherry Hill, N.J., salesman, chimes in, "I usually go for the weirdest-ass desserts. But I've never had fried Oreo or Twinkies before here."

He should've tried the fried Snickers. Yet, all these fried snacks — along with a comfort food menu of fajitas and chicken fingers — wasn't meant to be. For this pub wasn't meant to be a Drinker's, or even a pub at all. Instead, 1903 Chestnut St. was supposed to be Amedeo, Hornik's take on Mediterranean vegetarian kosher fare.

Back in November 2004, while in the middle of buying Bar Noir and opening the neighboring Noche, Hornik, operations manager Mark Fichera and Four Corners' executive chef Jeremy Duclut were talking up the former Indian restaurant space whose tall, boxy floors would house a high-end restaurant with a kosher menu of vegetarian, pasta and grilled fish, a garage door front, patterned glass, a 40-foot-high mezzanine and purplish hues. Wha'happen?

Hornik claims it was a matter of Conservative approval and Orthodox disapproval.

"We got a response from the Orthodox Jewish community that they really weren't interested in a kosher restaurant that would be open during Shabbat," says Hornik of the Jewish Sabbath, a day of rest that starts at dusk Friday evening and ends at dusk Saturday. "We had approval from Philadelphia's Conservative Rabbis. They allowed us to be open. But the Orthodox didn't want to back a restaurant called "kosher' even if it was approved by Conservatives."

Philadelphia's Rabbi Barry Rosen and Hornik spent time researching the food, planning the menu and its certification and going to New York City's Kosherfest. "Then I heard from the Orthodox kashrus [kosher law] area," says Hornik. "They were adamant against it."

A lot of Orthodox ire came from rabbis who had read advance publicity about Amadeo. Even if the food was prepared before Friday, even if they weren't the ones preparing the food; they were not happy.

"Their anger came from calling something kosher when it would be open on Shabbat," Hornik says. "We could've opened, gone with just Conservatives, but we didn't want a hostile Orthodox community. We didn't expect their unadulterated support. But we didn't expect such opposition. We didn't want them to be upset."

Not wanting to disturb Yahweh or any other deity, the kosher concept was retired about three months ago. So was the splashy look of Amadeo. After assuaging all Rittenhouse business-area fears that it would not be wild like Drinker's Tavern, Drinker's Pub was born: a cool vegetarian restaurant turned funky-but-chic.

"Something upscale but comfortable is good for any neighborhood," says Hornik. "We just want it to work for everyone."

Drinker's Pub, 1903 Chestnut St., 215-564-0914.