Inside Park Tavern, Opening Thursday in North Beach

Grid View

• A long communal table stands next to the marble-topped bar.
• The only holdover from the Joey & Eddie's days are the wooden tables.
• The "cafe" area has a more casual feel. Floors are made from terra cotta tiles. The wall was blown out to create more light and windowed doors that open to the sidewalk.
• Inside the cafe, art work was collected from various thrift stores with an eye to tying in Park Tavern's sister restaurant Marlowe.
• Sidewalk seating!
• A glistening Carrera marble tiled logo marks the entrance.

There was a little extra buzz on the Stockton Street side of Washington Square Park last night as Park Tavern opened its freshly minted space for a private pre-opening celebration. Co-owners Anna Weinberg and chef Jenn Puccio invited industry colleagues and good friends to throw back signature cocktails, fried green tomatoes, deviled eggs and slider-size Marlowe burgers, among other things. Thanks in part to Claudia Ross' crowd-sourcing abilities, Mary Etta Moose, Chron society writer Catherine Bigelow, the unmistakable Joy Bianchi and Willie Brown all showed up for some insidery good times.

Though fun facts about Puccio's menu were shared last week, Weinberg says a good deal of last minute menu tweaks are being made—especially in the entree department—based on pre-opening test dinner feedback. Since there's no final menu to pass on yet, it's time to show off some pretty pictures.

As evidenced by the glossies above, there's little to remind of the space's former identity as Joey & Eddie's. Weinberg's sister, designer Kendra Nash spearheaded the interior redo, creating a stately space out of re-purposed wood, vintage artifacts, Carrera marble and shocks of plant life to warm things up. Signature touches now include a re-purposed wagon wheel spun on its side to make a chandelier, a sweeping marble-topped bar, floor-to-ceiling windows along the sidewalk and a Park Tavern logo depicted in marble mosaic on the floor at the entrance way. Take a look at the captions above for further detail on what's been done. And keep eyes peeled on the website here. The final menu will probably drop tomorrow before Park Tavern opens for service at 6:30 p.m.

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