When Sam Sarin and Mike Romano decided they wanted to open up a second restaurant, they had a lot had a lot of choices about where to locate it.
 |
| Good food and good views at have brought crowds to Victor’s Pub in Camden. (Michael Perez/Philadelphia Inquirer) |
They already own the popular Sam’s Bar & Grille in the local Jersey suburb of Blackwood. Downtown Philadelphia seems to always be in need of new restaurants. Northern Liberties is a great place for pubs.
But the restaurateurs chose a different route: They built their restaurant in downtown Camden, N.J. Yep, Camden. The city across the river from Philadelphia where only 5.4 percent of residents have college degrees. Where per capita income is less than $10,000 and more than one-third of residents live below the poverty. And, more important, where the downtown, just blocks from abandoned and burned-out homes, turns into a ghost town after 5 p.m.
Not exactly an ideal location for a new business.
But all this makes the new Victor’s Pub,on the Camden waterfront, the “most important restaurant in the city right now,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“You’ve got to get the fear of the word Camden out of people’s minds,” Sarin told the paper.
And, amazingly, the new restaurant is well on its way to doing that.
Since opening, the restaurant is crowded at lunchtime. But that’s not a huge surprise, as the town still has a number of large office buildings downtowns. It’s the dinner crowd that’s surprising.
“What’s really been a blessing is the people in Camden staying in Camden,” Romano told the Inquirer. “The firemen, the cops, the judges, the lawyers.”
It’s the first step toward revitalization one of the poorest and dangerous cities in the country. With nightlife comes people, and with more eyes on the street comes safety.
“Restaurants and night life is the linchpin,” said Tom Corcoran, who lives above the Pub and is head of the Cooper’s Ferry Development Association. “That would get us to the critical mass where you create your own buzz.”
He’s hoping Victor’s creates a domino effect that spurs development along the waterfront. On the southern side of the Ben Franklin Bridge, the waterfront now has a restaurant, a concert venue, condos and a baseball stadium. The restaurant may just provide enough of an anchor to really kick start development despite the prison Camden Camden built a few hundred feet north, on the water.
Victor’s, as well as the rest of Camden, could use your business too. So instead of heading over for drinks at Mad 4 on a weekday, hop on PATCO and give Victor’s a try.
And once it gets nice, you can even sit outside, overlooking the Philly skyline. Just the other day, Cocoran noticed a number of such people taking advantage, sitting and talking outdoors. It was a new experience for him.
“My wife said, ‘What’s that noise?’” Corcoran told the Inquirer. “And I said, ‘That’s the sound of a city coming back to life.’”
An RSS feed of The Spin is available
May 31st, 2007 at 1:57 pm
This Victor’s Pub is Great!!! Awesome food and happy people. My husband and I took our 2 year old there after the aquairum. The view of the city is amazing, it is better on this side of the river! And much to our suprise, the baseball stadium had fireworks the night we were eating. What a fabulous backdrop (and child pleaser!) to a great time. We will be going back!