Honeysuckle, the groundbreaking restaurant, is coming back in a larger North Philly location that ‘feels close to home’

Chefs and social entrepreneurs Omar Tate and Cybill St.Aude-Tate loved the West Philadelphia home of Honeysuckle Provisions, their groundbreaking Afrocentric market and restaurant.

But, as Tate said last week, “we always knew that our ideas were much larger than 953 square feet.”

The business, which closed in October after two years, is expected to resurface in March at 631 N. Broad St. under a simpler name — Honeysuckle — and with a full bar in triple the amount of space. The new, 95-seat location will allow the concept “to stretch out and have more space and be harnessed by more people,” Tate said, describing it as “a cultural preservation space.” The staff of 25, mainly from the West Philadelphia location, is expected to grow to 40 or 45 in time.

Honeysuckle, named after the bushes that grew wild outside Tate’s childhood home in Germantown, will initially offer an à la carte dinner menu as well as the option of Tate’s original “UNTITLED” menus, in a new series overseen by longtime server Chelsea Martin. Inquirer critic Craig LaBan called the “UNTITLED” dinners an experience unlike any in the city, with “tasting menus that tell narratives about Black life and foodways through poetry, art, and reliably great flavors.”

Honeysuckle is still offering off-premises catering, which will continue out of the new kitchen.

As on 48th Street, ingredients will be mindfully sourced. Honeysuckle works closely with Plowshare Farms in Bucks County. Last week, Tate visited Long Island to dig for oysters with members of the Shinnecock Reservation, who will provide oysters to the restaurant. He pointed out that the Shinnecock had a relationship to the Lenape, who inhabited the Philadelphia area when William Penn arrived.

Tate and St.Aude-Tate are focusing on dinner before expanding to breakfast and lunch. The à la carte menu will reflect St.Aude-Tate’s Haitian roots and Tate’s ancestry in Charleston, S.C., by way of the Great Migration. Tate said daytime service would still include “the things that people came to love us for at Provisions,” such as the “dolla hoagie” with turkey or smoked pickled turnip, the chicken sandwich, the scrapple and breakfast sandwiches, grits and eggs, laminated pastries, and biscuits.

“We won’t be adding stupid brunchy things like caramel French toast or anything like that,” Tate said, chuckling. “People love it, I know, but we like to make our life hard.”

The liquor license will allow them to sell wine. Tate said the list would include natural wines by Black producers, as well as South African wines and palm wine. Honeysuckle also will serve its own wine, mostly derived from local fruits.

Honeysuckle’s new home is the former Clementine’s Stable Cafe, which opened in summer 2020 and never recovered from the pandemic before closing in 2023. It’s across from Osteria, Jeff Benjamin’s Italian restaurant, and South, the restaurant and jazz club owned by Robert and Benjamin Bynum.

Tate, 38, said he and his wife looked for space in West Philadelphia but couldn’t find anything suitable.

North Broad, he said, is “the main artery of the city. It’s ‘North Philadelphia’ technically, in my Philadelphia language. My uncles were part of the Black Panther standoff at Temple University in the ’70s, so this all feels close to home to me.”