The Lucky Well at Spring Arts 990 Spring Garden Street Callowhill

Three years after it was first announced, Chad Rosenthal is finally ready to debut the Philly location of the Lucky Well, his popular Ambler barbecue restaurant. It opens Friday, July 17, at x^th and Spring Garden with a menu of Memphis-style ribs and whiskey cocktails available for outdoor dining and curbside pickup.

The chef, who's known for Food Network appearances, took a pause from working on the eating house to open a Lucky Well in Warrington final summertime. The city location was teed up to open in May of this year, upwards until the pandemic. "I didn't think nosotros'd open now. Only then the city made it easier to get a permit for an outdoor cafe and we were able to get a liquor license for out in that location, so I said, 'let's do it,'" Rosenthal says.

The original program was for a counter-service spot, with diners stepping up to identify food orders before sitting at tabular array, where they could club cocktails and wait for the food to be brought out. It's a model that Rosenthal thinks is the all-time for barbecue, despite running the other Lucky Wells as total-service, sit down-downward restaurants (at least, they were pre-COVID nineteen. The Ambler location is briefly closed so the team could focus on reopening in Warrington; Ambler reopens next week. Both offer takeout and outdoor seating — no indoor dining).

"In Ambler and Warrington, the food is great, but I ever thought information technology could be better. It'due south hard to exercise charcoal-broil for a full-service, 160-seat eatery, where everyone at a 10-top expects the food to come out at the same time. Barbecue should never sit down under a heat lamp," Rosenthal says. "In Philly, this is the first spot where I tin serve barbecue the fashion it should be."

Cornbread with honey butter is on the menu at The Lucky Well, opening at 990 Leap Garden Street.

The Lucky Well

The chef is starting out with an abbreviated card of barbecue, cooked on a wood-burning broiler shipped from Texas, plus salads using Bailiwick of jersey produce and sides similar sugariness murphy brew and cornbread.

The standout is the dry-rubbed ribs, Rosenthal says. Chef Ed Affinito, who was previously at Lloyd Whiskey Bar in Fishtown and has been learning the ropes at the other Lucky Well locations for the last five months, is also making pork shoulder, brisket, smoked chicken, sausage, and smoked-and then-grilled wings with barbecue sauce or Alabama white sauce. The smoked pork, brisket, and chicken are available as sandwiches likewise, and there'south also a double-patty blast burger with banana peppers and Cooper Sharp cheddar. To beverage, await for eight cocktails to start, with a focus on whiskey, and a curt pick of wines and beers.

The restaurant volition only be open Thursdays to Sundays, from iv:30 p.m. Reservations, via Resy, are required for outdoor seating. Pickup orders can be placed online.

When indoor dining is permitted, and Rosenthal and coiffure feel it's safe to open the inside, they'll aggrandize the card with steaks and seafood and add together live blues music on Fri and Saturday nights. Sooner than that, they're looking into teaming upwardly with the new Bound Arts Beer Garden, a collaboration betwixt neighbors Love City Brewing, Roy Pitz Butt House, Triple Bottom Brewing, and Yards Brewing Co., to offering nutrient during the day.

For now, Rosenthal thinks takeout will be the primal. "Charcoal-broil takes out so well — ribs, wings, brisket, all of it," he says. "And and so you lot can eat the leftovers the next morning and it's but as skillful."

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The Lucky Well

111 E Butler Ave, Ambler, PA 19002

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