It’s all fun and games at Twenty One Pips, a new restaurant on the Main Line
Matt Hendricks, who opened Thirsty Dice in Philadelphia in 2018, is rolling the dice again, this time with a larger board-game restaurant in Ardmore.
Pips — not of the Gladys Knight variety — are on Matt Hendricks’ mind these days.
Pips are the black dots embossed on dice, 21 on the six-sided square die typically used in games.
Four years ago, Hendricks opened Thirsty Dice, a board-game cafe on Fairmount Avenue in Philadelphia. On Friday, July, 22, he opened his second fun house, a two-level space in Ardmore with a full restaurant, bar, and 500 games for playing at the table from morning till late night.
This explains the name, Twenty One Pips.
Partum Interiors designed the wide-open 170-seater, which has 22-foot ceilings and a bar (whose face is a series of dresser-drawer fronts) tucked behind the stairwell leading to a mezzanine for private events.
Fifteen-foot-high moss walls are inlaid with artwork of games by California artist David Cuzick and Philadelphia’s Zach Bird.
Banquettes, made from reclaimed church pews, are covered in navy and gray fabrics adorned with tufted red buttons (pips, if you will). The restrooms feature local artist Natalie Hope McDonald’s black-and-white hand-drawn murals incorporating iconic game-themed imagery.
You can treat Twenty One Pips as a bar/restaurant, of course. A “library pass” ($5 for two hours) grants access to games, including Skee-Ball and a 3-D Atari Pong table.
» READ MORE: Why board games are making a comeback, with adults
For a geeky experience, look for clear, sealed plastic display boxes containing old dice from the collection of Skip Anderson, a friend of Hendricks’.
Each is labeled with signs explaining its historical significance. One box, for example, shows old casino dice that seem to be crumbling. They were made from cellulose acetate, which decay, opposed to today’s versions, which are made of thermoset plastic. There’s another box containing dice used in a French game from the early 20th century called Un Deux Trois.
Chef Jonathan Robles’ menu, using mostly locally sourced ingredients, includes charcuterie boards (using cheeses and meats from Claudio’s in South Philadelphia), salads, flatbreads, sandwiches, double-smash patty burgers on Liccio’s brioche rolls, and full-on entrees, such as mussels, half-chicken over pommes puree, and riff on steak frites that’s a bistro filet served in a novel bagna càuda sauce with miso instead of anchovy. There’s an espresso semifreddo for dessert made with espresso and dark chocolate ganache, as well as a cast-iron brookie (a combo triple chocolate brownie and cookie).
Cocktails include a color-changing Professor Plum, made with gin, lemon, butterfly pea flower tea syrup, plum sake, and elderflower tonic, plus a full beer, wine, and spirits list.
Mornings include grab-and-go coffee (from Herman’s in South Philadelphia) and pastries from 7 to 11:30 a.m. weekdays, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.
Regular hours are 3 to 10 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 3 p.m. to midnight Friday, 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.