Kevin Sbraga’s latest, Juniper Commons, courts the mainstream diner.

A place I'd bring my suburban in-laws or my plain-eater dad.

Wine coolers and French onion soup are on the menu at Juniper Commons.
Neal Santos

Bread plates waited patiently on my table at Kevin Sbraga’s new restaurant, Juniper Commons. The silverware stood in line, the napkin folded just so. A votive candle burned in an amber glass ashtray, the kind you would have found in my great-aunt Lucy’s Ellsworth Street basement, stacked with the melamine platters and macaroni bowls in a pantry hidden behind a wall of chattering beaded curtains. 

Cocktails came. The drink, The Pretty Young Thing, blushed with sous-vide raspberries, housemade ginger juice and one of Juniper Commons’ 70 gins. Another gin, this one redolent of roasted pears, mingled with vanilla and chardonnay in a new-school wine cooler. Tom Pittakas, JC’s GM and beverage director, carbonates the cooler in cute logo-frosted bottles, caps them, chills them and sells them under the menu header Move Over Zima. This tastes a lot better than that: slightly fizzy, floral and oaky, with a little kick of gin on the finish. If they were available in six-packs, I’d stock my fictional beach house with them this summer.

Till then, I’ll have to head up Broad to the ground floor of South Star Lofts, a 5,300-square-foot sprawl Sbraga leased shortly after opening the Fat Ham. All three of the Top Chef’s restaurants share a landlord, and it took a lot of convincing by said landlord to open a place here. “It took a lot of time to develop a plan that fit a space this big,” Sbraga says. So why does Juniper Commons feel like it was slapped together over a long weekend?

For me, a big part of the answer is the ’80s-inspired concept. Sure, there were some technical successes, and the space of plaid upholstery, newspaper murals and Olivia Newton-John posters creates a fun, not-taking-itself-too-seriously spirit. But it’s hard to understand why a chef of Sbraga’s level would choose to spend his talents recreating wedge salads and fettuccine Alfredo.

“We’re not trying to be progressive or create something new,” says Sbraga. “We want to give people a flashback of the past, but do it better than it was done in the past.” Which I can respect. But with that goal in mind, Sbraga lieutenant Greg Garbacz is working on a thin margin of error: If you’re going to serve a menu of classics, the execution has to be flawless, the food so delicious that it makes traditional — even boring — stuff feel exciting. 

I found that in the soups, at least. Served in a traditional brown crock under a lid of melted Emmenthaler, the French onion was diner glory, with a complex broth kissed with brandy and alliums cooked to sweet, translucent wisps. The clam chowder had a lighter body and more finesse than what passes at most seafood shacks, but it looked the part seated on a saucer lined with a paper doily. 

Sbraga names the Pub in Pennsauken as a big inspiration for Juniper Commons. Like many Philly and Jersey families (mine included), the Sbraga clan celebrated often at the faux-medieval castle with the endless salad bar, balloon-like Yorkshire puddings and hulking prime rib. The Pub fascinated me as a kid when I’d go with my grandparents. When I returned as an adult a couple of years ago, the nostalgia was palpable but the cooking was really substandard. The prime rib there was tender at least, which is more than I could say for what I was served at Juniper Commons. Sliced off a whole roast that was cooked in the wood-burning oven, my 16-ounce boneless slab of beef was tough inside and burned around its chewy fat cap. 

Another Pub totem that Sbraga recreates: zucchini bread. Unfortunately, I never got to try it. I thought maybe bread would arrive while the cheerful Pittakas prepared a fine tableside Caesar salad for two on a cart that roamed the quarter-full dining room. But no, that bread plate sat empty all night. “Well that’s not good,” Sbraga said with dismay during our interview.

Also not so good: a square of eggplant Parm that wanted to be lasagna. It’s layered with ricotta, baked, pressed, cut, warmed and served in a cast-iron skillet. This overhandling rendered the breaded cutlets mushy, and I don’t know how you make a Parm anything minus the mozz.

Mahogany beef-fat fries are the right move in the a la carte sides section — fluffy inside, crunchy outside and coated in a mix of grated Locatelli, parsley and red pepper. The baked potato, larded with sour cream and Montreal steak seasoning-spiced butter, needed more salt. The deep-fried Brussels sprouts streaked in delicious lemon aioli needed less.

The food at Juniper Commons definitely tends to be heavy; for dessert all I wanted was a lemon. But I’m glad I made room for the superlative, not-too-sweet, chocolate layer cake brushed with espresso and Grand Marnier. Harvey’s cheesecake proved an excellent recipe from Sbraga’s dad, who owned a chain of bakeries in the city and Jersey.

It was good to end the meal on a high note, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to hurry back. With more consistency, Juniper Commons might be a place I’d bring my suburban in-laws or my plain-eater dad. But it does no more to further the conversation about restaurants in this wonderful food town than Jones or Ruth’s Chris. Not every chef saddles himself or herself with that responsibility. But the best do.

JUNIPER COMMONS | 521 S. Broad St., 267-417-5210, sbragadining.com/juniper-commons. Lunch: Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner: Sun.-Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. Brunch: Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Appetizers, $7-$12; entrees, $15-$38.