A new restaurant is coming to Suburban Station this spring, complete with a chocolate speakeasy

Italian cooking, a chocolate speakeasy, DJ brunches, and even licks of flamenco guitar are coming to Suburban Station in Center City early this spring.

Rhythm & Spirits, an energetic restaurant that is part of Atlantic City’s Orange Loop, is taking over the former Classic Cake on JFK Boulevard near 16th Street, which closed at the outset of the pandemic. It was the Penn Center location of Marathon Grill in the 1990s.

Owners Lee Sanchez and Mark Callazzo have partnered with Classic Cake’s Barry Kratchman. They said they hope to open in late March or early April.

Rhythm & Spirits will serve from morning (coffee, bagels, breakfast, sandwiches) into lunch and dinner. Weekend brunch, with music by a DJ, is a big part of the business, as is chocolate.

Sanchez and Callazzo own Bar 32 Chocolate next door to the Atlantic City location, offering what they call “bean-to-bar” chocolates that are served as desserts, cocktails, and candy bars.

In Philadelphia, the chocolate experience will be tucked into the rear of the restaurant, behind a curtain, at a lounge called 32 Chocolate Speakeasy. (The “32″ refers to the 32 acts at the original Woodstock music festival.)

They describe the atmosphere as “trippy and tropical,” similar to the five-year-old original, though the new space will be much brighter than the Atlantic City location. The new spot, accessible through JFK Boulevard and through a stairwell leading to the SEPTA concourse, is also twice the size. Design renderings were not available.

Sanchez, former vice president for food and beverage at Harrah’s Casino in Atlantic City, called Rhythm & Spirits “an expression of both of our heritages.” He and Callazzo come from Italian American families, and the menu riffs on red-gravy cooking: spaghetti and meatballs, cacio e pepe, truffle bucatini Alfredo, Sicilian seafood salad, and pizza. Sanchez said the Philadelphia menu will have more small plates than Atlantic City.

Sanchez said they will host theme nights, including a monthly Spanish dinner party inspired by his grandparents’ native Córdoba, Spain, that includes flamenco guitar, tapas, and his grandmother’s paella recipe. Other theme nights include jazz and Sinatra.

Classic Cake’s Kratchman considers the breakfast and lunch as a daytime amenity for the neighborhood, whose office towers are gradually refilling. At nighttime after the workers leave, he said, Rhythm & Spirits will be a destination, joining Uptown Beer Garden across the street and Concourse Dance Bar less than a block away. “If you create a great concept, people are going to want to come to it,” he said. After-hours parking in the area is rarely a problem.

For Kratchman — who met Sanchez and Callazzo through his executive pastry chef, Michael D’Angelo — the arrangement is part of a long-awaited rebound from a double whammy.

His Cherry Hill shop burned down on March 6, 2020, and was forced to relocate. Two weeks later, the Philadelphia location, which opened in 2018, was shuttered amid the government-mandated pandemic closings and never reopened.

Kratchman said the Cherry Hill location, in Short Hills Town Center, is due to reopen in April. Though Classic Cake and Rhythm & Spirits are not related, he said, the restaurant will serve Classic’s desserts, including its signature cheesecake.