Ruth's Chris opens new Center City location

Ruth's Chris Steak House returns to Center City, taking space on a revitalized stretch of Market Street just north of Rittenhouse Square.

Marsha Brown is making a multimillion-dollar investment, just as she did three decades ago when she arrived from the chain's hometown, New Orleans.

Back then, though, the location itself did not matter, she said. She fell hard for the Beaux Arts office tower at Broad and Spruce Streets built for the Atlantic Refining Co.

The neighborhood was far from prime. The Kimmel Center wasn't even a glimmer in Bill Rouse's eye. The Avenue of the Arts? More like the Avenue of the Tarts.

"It was the red-light district, to tell you the truth, because I remember bringing [chain founder] Ruth [Fertel] through and she was like, 'Oh, have you lost your mind?' I'm telling her, 'I feel it. I really feel it,' " Brown said last week.

Despite the location, Ruth's Chris from its opening in September 1988 became one of the city's most enduring steak houses, its nightly din punctuated by the sizzle of butter-topped steaks being rushed through the dining room.

When the building's new owners began a top-to-bottom renovation three years ago, converting the upper floors into residential units, Brown decided that it was time to move.

This time - in an era of much keener dining competition - location would be key. Ruth's Chris opens June 6 on the ground floor of the Sonesta hotel at 18th and Market Streets, occupying the former Elephant & Castle space.

"It seems like it's the heartbeat of the business district," Brown said. Comcast's new Innovation and Technology Center is rising a little more than a block away. More than 300 luxury apartments fill the new 28-story 1919 Market St.

Opening on the ground floor of a 400-room hotel is "an amenity for us," she said. "We are an amenity for them, but I think the street presence here is pretty awesome."

In 1988, Center City West seemed to be an area on the rise, with the new Liberty Place towers. But that was a mostly daytime population.

At 250 seats inside and out, the new restaurant will be substantially larger than 260 S. Broad St. It also will offer lunch and brunch, previously not served. (Here are menus for lunch, dinner, and happy hour.)

The design, a mix of classic and contemporary, is brighter than the original and includes a 30-foot refrigerated wine wall housing nearly 2,000 bottles.

Brown was an unlikely restaurateur. She rose through the ranks in banking in New Orleans and handled the accounts of Fertel, who founded Ruth's Chris in the 1960s.

And, Brown said, she hated her job. "They promoted me up to manager of the lending division, and so I was miserable because I was out of the people business," said Brown, who gave her age only as "over 60."

"So I went into the original Ruth's Chris steak house on Broad Street in New Orleans and I wrote a note on a napkin: 'Ms. Ruth, I am tired of banking. If you know of anyone hiring, give me a call,' because she knew all the politicians, celebrities, everybody in town. No sooner had I gotten back to my office, she called me and she said, 'Are you serious?' and I said, 'Oh, I am really serious.' "

"She said, 'Come over to my house,' because her office was in her house behind the original Ruth's Chris. So I went over to her house and in about two minutes I knew she was interviewing me and I said, 'Ruth, I know nothing about the restaurant business,' and she said, 'You know everything because you know numbers.' So I went, 'Oh, I do know numbers.' So she offered me a position and everyone thought I had absolutely lost my mind because I had this beautiful office on the twenty-something floor of the bank and I was going to work in her shotgun, double house on Broad Street in a bad area of New Orleans."

At the time, Brown said, she had gone through a divorce from a Louisiana politician, "and I kept thinking I needed to get out for a little while. So I went to the bookstore and bought a Places Rated Almanac, and in the Places Rated Almanac, Philadelphia and Nassau-Suffolk Counties [on Long Island] were listed in the top 10 places to live. So I flew back up here that next weekend to see if I could live here. I went back and I asked her if I could have the Philadelphia market, and she told me absolutely not. . . . I just really nagged her to death, cried and whatever, so finally she gave in."

Brown, who bought out an early partner, opened Ruth's Chris locations in Garden City, Long Island, in 1995 and King of Prussia in 2001. In 2003, she opened a New Orleans-theme bar-restaurant called Marsha Brown's in an old church in New Hope.

Business over the years has risen steadily. She said her restaurant survived the 2008 recession by "pulling our belt straps in and doing the right thing, without ever sacrificing quality. I think that was a really big thing that Ruth taught me. She said that people will pay - if your check average has to go up because of the cost of prime beef or whatever, they will pay. Don't ever, ever, ever sacrifice quality, because it's going to come back to you. "

mklein@philly.com