-Courtesy of En Route Marketing
photos by Brenda Hillegas
Restaurant and bar Lou Bird’s (500 S. 20th Street) recently introduced new menu items featuring delicious shareable plates and entrees perfect for spring and summer dining. The restaurant’s permanent outdoor sidewalk pavilion, built during the pandemic, offers a spacious dining area to enjoy the warm weather and appetizing meals.
Lou Bird’s serves delectable, ingredient-driven American cuisine in an elevated atmosphere. Located in the Graduate Hospital and Rittenhouse neighborhoods, Lou Bird’s kitchen is complemented by a full bar that offers a seasonal selection of drinks and original cocktails.
Owned and operated by Norris and Debbie Jordan, Lou Bird’s opened in August 2016 on the corner of 20th and Lombard Streets in the location formerly known as Meritage. The restaurant and bar, named after the Jordans’ 17-year-old daughter Lexi, followed up on the success of the couple’s first restaurant, The Happy Rooster, located at 16th and Sansom Streets in Philadelphia. For their second restaurant, the Jordans wanted to offer an affordable dining experience tailored to the chic setting of its Rittenhouse neighborhood.
Prior to opening Lou Bird’s, the Jordans worked to gut and redesign the building’s interior from scratch. The restaurant was completely refitted with a new kitchen and updated dining space, in addition to removing the drywall to expose the building’s beautiful original brick, which dates back to 1915. Meticulously restored reclaimed wood and antique fixtures from the iconic Divine Lorraine Hotel were added as accent pieces.
The new seasonal menu introduces a fresh and vibrant selection of new menu items reflecting the
seasons’ lightness and color and features exciting twists on classic American cuisine. Diners can choose from several new additions from the Small Plates menu, featuring a selection of soups, salads, and starter dishes, including chicken teriyaki dumplings or lamb meatballs.
Lou Bird’s has several plates on the shareables including the new orzo salad, homemade chicken empanadas, or the cheese board, served alongside fig jam, grapes, and walnuts.
This spring, Fields introduces new large plates like avocado pasta, tuna niçoise, lemon tarragon monkfish, braised short ribs, and a mushroom tower. In addition, diners can also still order the popular chicken pot pie. The signature Lou Burger remains a staple of the sandwiches menu, but the new Cubano is a must, or try the pastrami, lettuce, and tomato (PLT).
Please keep this on the menu forever!
The dessert menu features a new chocolate layered cake and a classic New York cheesecake that are both served with blueberries and whipped cream, plus a weekly special.
The bar offers a rotating selection of cocktails, beers, and wines to accompany meals, including Lou Bird’s twist on the classic watermelon margarita, passion fruit mojito, hibiscus paloma, or whiskey a-go- go. Additionally, Lou Bird’s offers six rotating draft beers on tap along with bottles of local favorites Yards Pale Ale and Evil Genius Guava IPA. Wine enthusiasts can pair their meal with a glass of a full- bodied red, like the Cheval Depuis, Cabernet Sauvignon, or order a bottle of the refreshing Canaletto Italy Pino Grigio for the table. Lou Bird’s always keeps a selection of wines from Oregon’s Willamette Valley because of the Jordans’ love of Pinot Noirs from that region.
The restaurant’s chef, Eli Fields, has brought his culinary expertise to the table since December 2022, adding a unique touch to classic American cuisine. Lou Bird’s is open seven days a week, offering food service from 4 to 9 p.m., Happy Hour running from 4 to 6 p.m. on weekdays, and brunch on Saturdays and Sundays starting at 11 a.m. Lou Bird’s can accommodate group reservations for parties of 10 to 70 people and provides several prix fixe menu options, starting as low as $50 per person. Private party and group reservation requests can be made by filling out a form on Lou Bird’s website.
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