With chicken, wine, and oysters, Picnic conjures joyful large-format casual dining from the rubble of Philly’s brewing past

Heart over brains.

That’s how Nick Kennedy describes the decision by the Defined Hospitality restaurant group to dive into the creation of Picnic in East Kensington, a 21st-century dream hall for chicken and oyster feasts conjured from the ruins of Philly’s once-vibrant 19th-century brewing industry.

Even for a company that’s made its mark crafting distinctive restaurants inside the vacant shells of industrial spaces, including Kalaya, Suraya, and Pizzeria Beddia, filling this 11,000-square-foot behemoth, once part of the Weisbrod & Hess Brewery, with a sprawling dining room, raw bar, and natural wine retail shop was a challenge.

To start, there was no roof on one side. A flock of pigeons flew through the crumbled brick and steel remains of the structure when Kennedy and his partners, Greg Root, Al Lucas, Joe Beddia, and Roland Kassis, first toured the onetime boiler room of the old Weisbrod & Hess Brewery in the spring of 2020. Known for its cream ale and Shakespeare dark lager, Weisbrod & Hess was one of 40 breweries within the city limits before the devastation of Prohibition in 1920. Brewing there ceased completely in 1938 until Yards Brewing Co. revived another building in the complex in 2001, where Philadelphia Brewing Co. now makes Kenzinger and Walt Wit.

The space that Picnic occupies required a complete rehab of the Historic Commission-protected Romanesque Revival brick facade and the 80-foot boiler chimney that towers over the 1891 building. Stokes Architecture oversaw that work while Briquette Studio’s light touch with the interior design — potted greenery, pastel tabletops, and modern art projected through live screens — deftly accents the exposed brick walls and natural light pouring in through the enormous windows. (Soundproofing wasn’t much of a consideration, based on the noise.)

To think this location was fallow for 60-plus years until its recent rebirth is astounding contrasted with the joyful scenes of a recent Thursday evening, when more than 200 diners reveled over platters of charcuterie, crudo plates, and rotisserie chicken at banquettes and tables scattered across the polished terrazzo floors beneath the 35-foot-high peaks of a soaring new ceiling.

Kensington’s industrial past has been fully replaced by its vibrant new industry — food and drink. And in a city saturated with intimate cozy restaurants, Picnic has provided something different, a rare public space outside of Chinatown where big groups have room to dine well in casual style, from the multiple birthdays being celebrated on either side of us to a baby shower nearby, flanked with strollers and shimmery balloons.

The heady smell of 30 spinning chickens basting one another in their own drippings over the charcoal and wood fires of the Josper rotisserie in the open kitchen is enough to make anyone hungry. And these organic Lancaster birds, brined, then rubbed in a cumin-y spice with dried peppers, emerge with crisp mahogany skin and juicy flesh. Paired with fresh-cut frites and a handful of sauces — the Peruvian salsa verde, chili oil, and hollandaise were my picks — this is destination chicken, a perfect centerpiece for communal dining. At $22 for half a three-pounder (or $44 for a whole), it‘s fairly priced, too, compared to other roast chicken contenders like Irwin’s, Parc, and Vernick Food & Drink.

Chicken alone may not be enough to continuously fill this massive room. But in time there will be prime rib, duck, and porchetta specials off the rotisseries. There are already other worthy menu items from Kennedy and executive chef Joe Mooney to note, including a fantastic oyster bar and, especially, one of the best veggie burgers I’ve ever eaten.

The rest of Picnic’s multifaceted experience at times risks overcomplicating the concept.

For instance, I appreciate the drink program’s options of affordable natural wines by the glass (all $12, including a Cochonnet gamay that pairs with nearly everything), zero-proof wines ($10), and a quartet of $15 cocktails with distinctive style. Most notable is a wet vodka martini infused with the briny minerality of Montauk Pearl oyster shells and shiitake mushrooms.

Before you get to that drink list in the dining room, however, you enter the restaurant through a retail wine store next to the open kitchen. On one hand, it makes sense to encourage guests to pick out a special bottle for their “picnic” to come. After lowering some of the initial prices, there are plenty of fine choices around $50, including a zippy Petit Le Mont sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley and a berry-forward, peppery red Douro blend from Familia Carvalho Martins.

With our table ready and the gravitational pull of that boisterous dining room drawing us in, I found it hard to linger there to focus on the 105 bottle selections, many of them from unfamiliar small producers. Our friendly server in the restaurant was well prepared to help guide us through those retail bottles, but once seated, I didn’t want to step away from my guests for a label browsing tour with him.

The concept is modeled in part on Bacchanal, a popular wine shop with backyard dining and live music in New Orleans. And Picnic may eventually evolve into a worthy neighborhood retail wine stop, too, especially since recently lowering prices for bottles to go. At the moment, though, it is still an awkward restaurant amenity.

A more important correction has already happened: Picnic’s initial plan was for a hybrid service model that expected customers to order from a tabletop QR code. That system, which was often confusing and technically deficient, has since thankfully been removed. (Kennedy’s logic was that self-ordering and paying saved an average of 20 minutes of staff interactions per table that could be spent better among guests or browsing the wine shop.)

But I didn’t come to this gorgeously restored room just to feel like I’m ordering from Grubhub. Picnic’s staff is too well-trained, and too personable, to be reduced to glorified food runners and consultants from the IT help desk. Hospitality has always been one of this company’s strengths, and those personal interactions can be the difference between dining out and simply feeding.

Heart over brains.

After all, you may need some advice on that drink list or on which of the five varieties of East Coast oysters are showing best at the moment, and be pleasantly surprised at the small but savory Violet Skies from Little Egg Harbor, N.J., second on my platter only to the briny Aunt Dotties from Plymouth, Mass.

The cheese and charcuterie platter choices offer solid artisan American options, from Pennsylvania’s Birchrun Blue and Goat Rodeo Bamboozle to lamb salami from Maryland and prosciutto from Casella’s in New York. There’s also plenty of room for Picnic’s kitchen to grow with some in-house uncured charcuterie.

The plan has always been to keep the menu fairly simple, which is smart for a such a high-volume operation. Aside from that chicken, most of the dishes amount to elaborate nibbles with an emphasis on good ingredients and seasonal treatments, like charcoal-charred beans tossed with summer‘s last sungold tomatoes in aromatic mint vinaigrette, or grilled broccoli tossed with turnips in chicken drippings that’s brightened with preserved lemon. Grilled head-on shrimp with spicy beurre blanc and roasted Cape May Salts in lemony butter with yuzu koshu and a carrot-habanero hot sauce are two irresistible seafood highlights. And a toasty Metropolitan Bakery ficelle stuffed with fennel sausage and oozy raclette cheese feels like a slightly out-of-place Alpine snack, but is delicious nonetheless.

The dessert list — a caramel-pecan riff on chocolate layer cake; tangy frozen yogurt with an array of chef-y toppings (olive oil, honey, and bee pollen; roasted fruit with tarragon) — satisfies without too much of a lift from the kitchen.

The most fascinating and innovative culinary projects at Picnic are reserved for the sandwiches. The crispy chicken sandwich is a clever use for shredded leftover chicken, the lightly smoky meat pressed with cheddar and chicken jus into squares that are fried, then layered with long hot aioli and shredded iceberg onto a pillowy bun.

The mushroom “burger” is a full-on molecular gastronomy adventure. Button mushrooms and shiitakes are lightly roasted until they release their juice, then get roughly chopped and mixed with casein (a dairy protein) and transglutaminase (a binding enzyme, a.k.a. “meat glue”) before they’re rolled into logs, cooked sous vide to set, chilled, then cut into patties.

Griddled to a crisp and layered on a Baker Street pain au lait bun with all the LTOP fixings and Jarlsberg cheese, this is one of the most compelling veggie burgers I’ve ever eaten. The patty is firm but still crumbles at the bite with a texture reminiscent of ground beef and delivers a deeply roasty, earthy savor that has its own woodsy appeal.

It‘s too bad this veggie burger is not yet vegan. Despite Picnic’s best research efforts to date, they’ve yet to find a better formula. The mushroom burger is already a loss leader with poor food cost, considering the amount of mushrooms needed to make a patty. But it is just so good, Kennedy couldn’t resist running it. Most people will come here, no doubt, for the chicken, oysters, and wine in one of Philly’s most intriguing new town hall dining spaces. But Picnic’s most ambitious culinary creation will also pay off as a singular, magnetic pull.

Score one more for the impulsive choice. Heart over brains — or, in this case, mushroom burgers over business sense — wins again.

2421 Martha St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19125, 267-856-7779, picnicphilly.com

Dinner Monday through Thursday, 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday, until 10 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 10 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 8 p.m.

Small plates, $8-$20; Chicken, $22 (half) to $44 (whole).

Menu highlights: raw bar oysters; rotisserie chicken; roasted oysters; grilled shrimp; mushroom “burger”; soft-serve yogurt.

There are several gluten-free options, included a dedicated fryer for french fries that is uncontaminated.

Wheelchair accessible.

Street parkng only.