High Street is back, in a new Center City location with a bar
Ellen Yin and the crew behind Fork and a kitchen have opened High Street, which has a showcase pastry kitchen and a 14-seat bar in its location at 9th and Chestnut Streets.
Three years after it closed during the pandemic, High Street is back — in a larger, more ambitious setting, and six blocks from where it began. The restaurant has taken the corner space at the Franklin Residences at Ninth and Chestnut Streets with new features, including a glassed-in pastry shop, a 14-seat bar, and a private dining room.
High Street’s name is a subtle change from its opening in 2013 as High Street on Market. (High Street was Market Street’s colonial name.) Business partners Ellen Yin, chef Eli Kulp, and Roberto Sella — intending it as a casual sibling of Fork restaurant next door in Old City — set the table, as it were, for the current generation of all-day cafés, like Talula’s Daily and Tela’s Market.
But the pandemic threatened its future. Yin and partners, saying they faced a 50% rise in rent, elected to close the location, at 308 Market St., in the summer of 2020. They eventually relocated the High Street bakery and a small grab-and-go section to a small storefront on the Ninth Street side of the Franklin Residences, adjacent to the current location. Also during the pandemic, they closed a second High Street location, in New York City.
High Street, in the space formerly housing Sandler’s, is reviving the original format: baking program in the morning; sandwiches, salads, pastas, and house-made breads using locally milled flour and grains for lunch; and a full-service restaurant at dinner. New in head baker Delilah Pergola’s shop will be pizza and baking classes, private events in a 35-seat private dining room, and eventually cocktail seating in the Franklin’s historic lobby. Brunch will begin in mid-October.
Meg Rodgers of Marguerite Rodgers Ltd., who designed the original as well as such iconic restaurants as the original Striped Bass and Rouge, worked on this one.
She repurposed some items, such as the front table and wind vane, and in a tough spot in the dining room, installed a table seating three people, a rarity in an industry that tends to count by twos.
After opening the Ninth Street bakery and to-go section two years ago, Yin said her old customers as well as new neighbors embraced it. “It’s close by to our customer base, and I feel like this particular neighborhood has so much potential,” she said.
“Jefferson [Hospital] has grown so much. You see people investing in Chestnut Street and new businesses are popping up everywhere.”
An unabashed Philadelphia civic booster, Yin likes what she calls “this very high traffic corner where you have patients and their families who may be looking for something, and neighbors that don’t [want] to cross over Broad Street.” There also is a parking lot across the street, a convenience not as readily available in Old City.
High Street’s menu also has evolved and gone lighter. “Less esoteric” is how Yin described it, using a term written by Inquirer critic Craig LaBan in his 2014 rave review. Chef Christina McKeough’s menu is anchored by locally sourced grains made into pizzas, pastas, and breads — “snacky, family-style, comforting plates. People are looking for small snacks and a great beverage program.”
McKeough worked at Fork back in 2004, before she became a general manager at the late Django in Queen Village and then left to open her own restaurant in the Finger Lakes (hence, the American wine list and bar, set up in conjunction with a.kitchen’s Frank Kinyon). “She has a really good pulse on what is modern, elegant, and sophisticated, and I think that’s always been what we try to be: simple but yet understated,” Yin said.
High Street, 101 S. Ninth St. Current restaurant hours are 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 5 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Bakery/grab-and-go hours are 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday.