Cozy, hip restaurant lounge opens in Market Square
There is a new reason to hang out at Downtown’s Market Square, and it is called Emerson’s.
Located on the second level of Market Street Grocery, it opened as the Holiday House, a pop-up bar, in December and transitioned into a restaurant lounge on Jan. 2. The homey, cozy space is just as inviting for the “cool kids,” after-work types and singles as it is for boomers, weekend out-and-abouters and couples.
“We wanted to open a place that offers comfort and is a home away from home,” says Rachel Priselac, who coowns Emerson’s along with her husband, David Priselac, Mimi and Ralph Falbo and chef Chad Rapp. The Priselacs and Falbos also own Market
Street Grocery and The Graeme House, an event space on the third floor of the building.
There are two entrances to Emerson’s — one is by the grocery store’s stairwell on Market Street and other is by the elevator or stairwell by the Graeme Street entrance to the shop. In the early evening, fading sunlight streams in through the large windows facing Market Square and when darkness sets in, the fireplace and the outside lights add a warm glow.
The just under 2,000square-feet space is divided into bar, restaurant and lounge zones and can seat around 75. Individual marble two-top tables occupy a part of the floor, an alcove features upholstered chairs and a community table with bench seating is located by the windows. There’s also a couch by the fireplace and plenty of seating by the bar.
Something that stands out in the restaurant lounge is the wall, which has sections that over time were cut deep into the brick. The Priselacs call it the central element, saying that they could see the different stages of the building in the wall. So they have kept as much of the original wall that the city code would allow.
The decor is stark for now barring few artworks but the couple plans to add plants and more pieces of art. “We want to approach it in the same way we decorate our home,” Mr. Priselac says.
The couple also wants to add more wines, spirits and foods like pastas, steak and red snapper to the menu. Currently, the limited food menu, ranging $9 to $13, features charcuterie and cheese plates, poutine with steak fries, beef gravy and cheese curds and a house salad with mixed greens, watermelon radish, cucumber and citrus-dill vinaigrette.
Chef Rapp also offers four kinds of 10-inch pizzas — traditional, pepperoni, bianca and inverno. He uses an old school New York-style dough but does not stretch it thin. So the pies are soft and crisp.
Unlike the typical white that is smothered with greasy cheese, the one at Emerson’s is topped with garlic confit, roasted grape tomatoes, just the right amount of ricotta and ribbons of basil.
Inverno, which translates to winter in Italian, lives up to the name and is topped with wild boar sausage with black truffles and a herb mix sweetened with brown sugar. The result is the pizza bursts with some sweet, some salt and some umami. Mr. Rapp found a recipe for a pork dish with winter herbs in “an archaic Italian cookbook from 1918” and tweaked it for the pizza. Classic cocktails (sparkling Negroni, Manhattan, Old Fashioned and M’s Mule), red, white, rose and sparkling wines (with some natural) and draft (East End Big Hop and Lagunitas IPA), bottled and canned beers fill out the beverage menu.
The Priselacs get their organic wines from Italy (zinfandel, chardonnay), natural wines from Australia (Si Vinters, white and Freddy Nerks, syrah) and are looking to get some small batch wines from California. They also are exploring adding cognacs and mezcals to the beverage list.
Even though Market Street Grocery, Downtown’s first grocer, has a stocked wine bar at the back of the store, the couple don’t see
Emerson’s competing with it in the slightest way. While the wine bar that can accommodate 20 people is open earlier in the day and is limited to Pennsylvania spirits and Italian wines, Mr. Priselac explains, the much bigger Emerson’s will feature a broader range of wines and spirits.
The couple named Emerson’s after their daughter, who is now 3½ years old. “We began the work on the second floor right around the time we had Emerson. She was with us at all our construction and planning meetings,” Mrs. Priselac says.
Now, the couple is expecting their second child soon. So will there be another project in the works?
“Who knows? Maybe three years from now, we will be ready for another one,” she says, laughing. “Emerson had to wait for 3½ years and so we have some time.”