Rhythm & Spirits, opening Friday above Suburban Station at One Penn Center, launched in Atlantic City six years ago, but its inspiration harks back to co-owner Lee Sanchez’s upbringing in Newark, N.J. That’s where his father lived after his arrival from Spain and where his mother’s Italian parents settled.
Dinnertime, then, meant “meatballs, macaroni and gravy, paella, and family around a big table,” Sanchez, 42, said.
Rhythm & Spirits’ dinner menu, overseen by chef Patrick Bones, includes red-gravy staples such as meatballs (priced at $22, served atop a pool of honey-whipped ricotta under a blizzard of Parmigiano-Reggiano), pastas (spicy rigatoni, spaghetti and meatballs, cacio e pepe, at $25 to $32), and 12-inch pizzas ($18 for a margherita to $25 for one topped with buttermilk-brined fried chicken). The Spanish plates include gambas al ajillo ($21, shrimp in saffron-garlic butter) and paella ($22, prepared as fried balls, arancini-style). There’s a bar serving beer, wine, and cocktails, though there’s no bar seating (it’s offered in a lounge area instead).
Sandwiches ($15 to $26) and salads ($16 to $18) are featured alongside pizzas on the lunch menu, and the brunch menu has waffle and egg dishes, such as Eggs tu Brute ($28), a take on eggs Benedict: poached eggs on top of folded crepes filled with seared mortadella and covered in hollandaise.
There have been some changes since this project was announced in February 2024, with an anticipated opening that spring. Sanchez and partner Barry Kratchman, who also owns Cherry Hill’s Classic Cake bakery, attributed the year-plus delay to personal health issues and, ultimately, general timing. (Sanchez, a former vice president of food and beverage at Harrah’s Resort whose STW Hospitality is based at the Jersey Shore, said he wanted the 2025 summer season to wind down before launching in Center City.)
They scrapped a planned chocolate “speakeasy,” and Mark Callazzo, Sanchez’s partner in the now-shuttered Atlantic City Rhythm & Spirits location, is no longer involved in the operation. (The Tennessee Avenue establishment, which opened in 2018, wound down gradually after a roughly five-year run.)
Philadelphia’s Rhythm & Spirits, in a bright, eclectic setting beneath enormous globe lighting, fills Classic Cake’s former retail store, which opened in late 2018 and closed in 2020, at the outset of the pandemic. The space was a Marathon Grill location from 1990 into the early 2010s.
Kratchman’s bakery provides the restaurant’s desserts, such as pumpkin cheesecake, an old-school Italian rum cake, chocolate-hazelnut torte, and a box of classic pastries including ricotta cannoli, sfogliatelle, and pastel de nata. Classic’s executive pastry chef, Michael D’Angelo, also makes a purple velvet cake with cream cheese icing for the restaurant.
The Suburban Station location, which has a street entrance on JFK Boulevard near 16th Street and a door at the top of the stairs leading down to the SEPTA trains, is designed to meet commuters where they are — literally. The partners plan a cafe-style grab-and-go breakfast daily and lunch service on weekdays and brunch on weekends, as well as happy hour and dinner every day. Seating will flex for private events. The space can seat from about 100 to 175 people on both sides of the staircase.
Sanchez said they want to serve guests who come out for a cocktail in the evening or who just want dessert. There also will be entertainment, though the schedule has not been set. “We will do live music, but not ‘every Friday at 8,’” Sanchez said, adding that they plan to revive Sinatra suppers and Spanish nights with a flamenco guitarist — both staples from the Atlantic City location. There may also be DJs or performers at brunch. “The idea is that anything can happen,” he said.
Sanchez takes the restaurant’s look personally. “You can’t look in any direction and not see something with meaning,” he said. “There’s artwork from places I’ve worked, gifts from customers, pieces from Steel Pier in Atlantic City. It all tells the story of where we’ve come from.”
Rhythm & Spirits, 1617 JFK Blvd., Philadelphia, PA 19103 Hours: Opens Sept. 26 with dinner, 4 to 10 p.m. daily. Lunch, starting Sept. 29, will be 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. Brunch, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekends, starts Oct. 11. The cafe will open at 8 a.m. daily starting sometime in October.
Dining and Cooking