A new French-style cafe on the Comcast Center plaza? Sources say Stephen Starr has plans.
The tech giant and the restaurateur declined to comment. It's supposed to open in June.
Stephen Starr is planning to take over the seasonal cafe on the vast plaza outside of the Comcast Center at 1701 JFK Blvd., sources within the restaurant trade have told The Inquirer.
Starr, who owns 18 restaurants in Philadelphia, and representatives for Comcast declined to comment.
The Plaza Cafe, which can accommodate nearly 100 people under partial cover, is expected to reopen in June under Starr with a French-style theme — perhaps a lighter version of his Rittenhouse landmark, Parc. No name has been attached to it yet.
The sources said this season’s menu would be somewhat limited because of a lack of kitchen equipment.
The cafe was previously operated by Alex Plotkin, who also ran Chops, the restaurant inside the Comcast Center that faces the plaza. Starr will not take the Chops space, which has been vacant since 2020, the sources said.
Comcast’s 9,000 employees in the Comcast Center, Comcast Technology Center, and other Center City sites recently began returning to their offices, a long-awaited relief to the lunch retailers and happy-hour bars west of Broad Street.
In early May, the Market and Shops at the Comcast Center, a food hall in the concourse beneath the building, will reopen.
The return of the Plaza Cafe would “bring back the energy of the building,” said Joe Wolf, a consultant who has worked on other retail deals on and around the Comcast campus but is not involved in this cafe. He said events that drew upwards of a thousand people in 2017 would not be repeated.
Vernick Fish, Vernick Coffee, Jean-Georges and JG SkyHigh at the Four Seasons, all in the Comcast Technology Center at 18th and Arch Streets, are now open as well.