A full-blown Middle Child is coming to PHL

It turns out that the Middle Child sandwiches inside the new Chase Sapphire Lounge at Philadelphia International Airport were just the start of sandwich slinger’s presence at PHL: A standalone Middle Child is planned for Terminal D this fall.

This “truly fast-casual iteration” of Middle Child, as owner Matt Cahn described it, will have 50 seats and serve brunch and sandwiches from a bar and sandwich counter. The menu isn’t set — Cahn said he hasn’t started research and development yet — but the focus will be “sandwiches from Center City that can stay delicious at the volume an airport requires.”

“We’ll work hand-in-hand with Jackmont [Hospitality, an airport-restaurant specialist] to re-create the items that you know and love, but also drum up some new ones just for the airport,” Cahn said.

Jackmont is also behind the forthcoming PHL outposts of Oyster House and Federal Donuts, as well the Elixir Coffee that opened last year. (Elixr will be supplying Middle Child’s coffee as well.) Oyster House and Federal Donuts are both are expected to open by late spring/early summer, said Dana Krawchuk, a marketing manager at MarketPlace PHL, the developer and landlord for shops and restaurants at the airport.

This fast-casual Middle Child is an entirely different operation from the offerings at the Chase Sapphire Lounge, both in terms of the partner and the inspiration.

“The Lounge is a culinary partnership with Clubhouse,” Cahn said. “It stays true to the Middle Child ethos, of course, but it has more of that composed, elevated feel that Clubhouse offers.”

Five additional seasonal items are planned for the lounge, on top of the currently offered breakfast burrito and Shopsin club, Cahn said.

Perhaps the most practical difference for travelers, though, is that you don’t need a fancy Chase credit card to visit the Terminal D Middle Child, which will be located near gates D12 and D14. “I’m stoked to see someone from who-knows-where, North Dakota, eat a club sandwich with miso on it,” Cahn said.

The airport seems unlikely to be Middle Child’s last stop. In a trademark fight last year with a Las Vegas restaurant also calling itself Middle Child, Cahn said that he was planning future Middle Childs at PHL as well as Los Angeles and Austin. (A judge dismissed the lawsuit against the Vegas upstart earlier this year.)

Now that Cahn’s airport ambitions have been fulfilled, what’s next? “For now, we’re just having fun,” Cahn said without commenting on specific locations. “But in the future, maybe we’ll use all of our learnings to create a ‘greatest hits’ version of Middle Child that we can take outside of Philadelphia.”