Seth Stowaway isn’t wasting any time since closing his Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant in the Mission. In addition to launching a private dining club, he’ll be opening a new, more casual restaurant tentatively called Chicken-Fried Palace.
Last week we learned that former Osito chef Seth Stowaway was returning to hosting private dinners in a pop-up format, with a dining club not unlike the one he ran prior to opening Osito three years ago. And this week, the SF Standard reports that Stowaway also leapt to take over the former WesBurger spacen at 2240 Mission Street, after chef-owner Wes Rowe decided to close the business after nine years.
WesBurger served its final burgers and tots on Tuesday, July 15.
Just like Stowaway channeled his Texas roots into the live-fire-driven cooking at Osito, he’ll be tapping that background in opening this new diner concept, centering the menu on chicken-fried steak and other chicken-fried items — including, he tells the Standard, a chicken-fried Reuben sandwich.
As explained on Antoni Porowski’s new NatGeo food and travel series, No Taste Like Home, via the family and heritage of actor James Marsden, the Texan staple of chicken-fried steak is just schnitzel by another name, having been brought to Texas by German immigrants.
There are also plans to get a liquor license and offer boozy milkshakes, along with regular milkshakes, and pie for dessert.
He’s bringing in a chef from Memphis and biscuit specialist named Cole Jeanes to run the kitchen, the Standard reports, and the diner being tenatively named Chicken-Fried Palace is aiming to be open by the fall. Still, things could change, and Stowaway says that “paperwork” still hasn’t all been signed for the project.
It does not sound like there will be significant changes to the WesBurger space — but Stowaway tells the Standard there will be some “Dollywood”-esque pink wallpaper.
Like WesBurger, it sounds like the food at the new restaurant will package well for delivery apps too.
Stowaway’s dining club, which just launched this month, has a membership component in which members get early access to seats at weekly private dinners — serving just 10 diners at a time — and they get access to booking Stowaway to cook private dinners at their homes. The greater public will also be able to book seats at the regular dinners, if members don’t take them. Find more info here.