Forget soft opening: New restaurants are throwing housewarming parties, too
Restaurant housewarming parties have become a trend. While friends-and-family events traditionally are dress rehearsals for restaurants, chefs are now also throwing housewarming parties.
It’s customary for new restaurants to hold a friends-and-family event before they open. It’s a dress rehearsal to make sure everything is operating smoothly before opening to the public.
These events can take many forms, but they’re both celebratory and practical, chances for newly hired staff to work out the flow of service before restaurants and bakeries open to the public.
Those who attend are usually not charged, but maybe they’ll be asked to leave a tip for the staff, and their feedback on the service and food is vital. But lately, preopening parties seem to have taken a turn for the more domestic.
At recent lively celebrations for Scampi and Dreamworld Bakes, both owners referred to them as “housewarmings.” The atmosphere was that of a house party, perhaps even a college house party. Scampi sprung from chef Liz Grothe’s actual house, where she previously held supper parties under the Couch Cafe banner.
Philly has no shortage of chefs running clandestine pop-ups in their homes, and perhaps that’s why its newest restaurants are naturally holding housewarmings.
“Friends-and-family was a way for me to collect feedback from pillars of the industry. Friends I’ve made in media, PR, and restaurants, plus old friends from working on the line in the city to see our mini-debut and point us in the right direction,” said Grothe, who held both a friends-and-family rehearsal of service and a housewarming party, where she served hot dogs and shrimp arancini.
Guests helped themselves to food on paper plates and brought booze, just as one would to a housewarming party in an actual house. Grothe announced midway through the party: “I don’t know any of these people. I love this.”
“The housewarming was a fun, free party for everyone else who has been following along the way. I’m a broke cook at the end of the day, and so are almost all of my favorite friends, so when I can squeeze in a big free food party for the other artists, musicians, writers, cooks, it’s part of how we always did things at Couch Cafe,” said Grothe.
When Little Water opened in Rittenhouse, they didn’t call their preopening party a housewarming, but it had a similar feel. They held friends and family services on two separate nights and then threw a preview party on Oct. 17 that might best be described as a rager. Tables were pushed to the sides of the restaurant, wine flowed freely, and servers bore trays of oysters around the room.
The housewarming was a fun, free party for everyone else who has been following along the way.
On a blustery, unusually warm Sunday last week, I swept into 2400 Coral St. for the housewarming party of Dreamworld Bakes, two hours after it started. All that was left of Ashley Huston’s glittery cakes were crumbs. Everyone looked thrilled.
Huston had run soft-opening weekends throughout December, where her staff of five worked out the kinks, getting their bearings with their POS system and ordering.
But this event was different. Huston flitted from group to group, dipping in and out conversations and embraces. One woman sat on a couch in a corner, knitting. There was no money exchanged and no practice service. Scrolling through social media, I could see that the cakes were gorgeous at the start, a passion fruit pavlova, black forest gateau, and gingerbread trifle.
“Bring booze,” Huston had said in her invitation. A three-bay sink was repurposed as a drinks cooler, filled with ice and bottles of Korbel, a 40-oz. bottle of Miller High Life, local ciders, and bottle caps. Guests also came bearing plants as gifts.
“I wanted to celebrate this journey that I have been on with this bakery. It’s very easy for me to think of the stressful parts, the financial struggles, and the ups and downs of opening something. I invited everyone who had been a supporter or who helped me along the way. I wanted to show off for them,” said Huston. “For me, it was nice to take a little breather and enjoy the space from the other side.”
As more and more of Philly’s underground supper club chefs move from cooking out of their homes to open brick-and-mortars, perhaps we will see more housewarming parties in restaurants in 2025.