A Southern comfort food restaurant chain is coming to South Broad Street
Kitchen & Kocktails, now in five cities, will bring Southern-style food and Instagrammable vibes to Center City this fall.
Kevin Kelley says he is bringing his fast-growing Southern comfort food restaurant, Kitchen & Kocktails, to Philadelphia, where it will replace the soon-to-close Del Frisco’s Grille on the ground floor of the Cambria Hotel at 225 S. Broad St.
Kelley told The Inquirer that he plans to get the key the day after the steakhouse’s shutdown later this month. “It’s a beautiful space as it is, so there’s not much I have to do aesthetically to change it. We’re ready to rock and roll.”
The opening is targeted for October, pending liquor licensing.
Philadelphia will be the sixth city for Kitchen & Kocktails, known for lively vibes and a lush, Instagrammable atmosphere. The menu is Southern comfort: shrimp and grits (topped with a lobster tail), fried catfish, oxtails, blackened salmon, and smothered pork chops. Brunch includes specialty waffles (cinnamon roll, Biscoff, peach cobbler) and Dream Eggs (a riff on deviled eggs). The bar pours more than a dozen signature cocktails and frozen drinks.
Kitchen & Kocktails will join other out-of-town restaurants on that stretch of Broad Street, including Loch Bar (Baltimore), Leo at the Kimmel Center (New York), Steak 48 (Scottsdale, Ariz.), the Capital Grille (Orlando), and McCormick & Schmick’s (Houston). Mr. Edison, from the Florida-based restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow, is preparing to open at the Bellevue this fall.
Kitchen & Kocktails premiered in 2020. Kelley was a litigator for two decades, running his own law firm, when he had an empty space in the Hart Building in downtown Dallas. “No one would lease it, and I knew it was ideal for a restaurant, so I built it out,” he said in an interview.
“I hired a fantastic team of chefs and bar professionals,” he said. The opening coincided with the start of the pandemic. “You know, Texas was a bit more open than other locales, and we were surprised to see the massive response that we got from day one. From there, we realized that we’ve got what we believe is the best comfort-food concept in the entire country.”
After Dallas, Kelley followed up with a location in Chicago’s River North neighborhood in 2021; a three-story restaurant in the Franklin Square section of Washington, D.C., in 2023; a two-story restaurant in Charlotte’s Queen City quarter in 2024; and a restaurant in Perimeter Mall just outside of Atlanta, also in 2024. “I’ve had another 50 offers for spaces over the past several months,” he said. “It’s a blessing.”
Though Kelley said he enjoys winning cases, “the hospitality stuff is more fun. With hospitality, I get a chance to have a positive effect on the hundreds of thousands of customers we service every year. I can’t wait to get into the Philadelphia market to give them our absolute best.”
Asked to discuss the Eagles-Cowboys rivalry, Kelley replied: “Hell no, man. I’ve got food to sell. When I come to Philadelphia, I’m an Eagles fan.”