The celebrated Austrian-born chef, restaurateur, caterer and businessman will bring his imprimatur to the Kimmel, taking over catering operations - an important piece of the Kimmel's revenue-generating plan - as well as the restaurant.
The Kimmel's current restaurant, Cadence, closed in June. Puck will develop a new restaurant, which will take over the Spruce Street-side space currently occupied by the gift shop. The new restaurant would open a year from now, in the fall of 2011, but catering functions will begin this fall in the former Cadence space and some Puck cuisine will be available at the plaza cafe.
Puck's presence comes through an existing partnership with Restaurant Associates, the Kimmel's current food-service vendor, which continues its relationship with with the Kimmel and be a tenant in the Kimmel's basement kitchen.
Both the new video cube (which is a larger, three-dimensional realization of the festival's logo) and the opening of a ground-floor restaurant are philosophically consistent with the Kimmel's drive to enliven its public spaces. Various architects and urban planners, as well as a 2008 public charrette run by PennPraxis (a Penn-related nonprofit planning authority), have cited the Kimmel's lack of vibrancy, particularly at hours when no performances are taking place.
"The outside of the building must let the public see, hear and feel what is happening inside the building," concluded one of the PennPraxis proposals. "The outside, now seen as foreboding, dull and confusing, should broadcast a sense of excitement and activity onto the street."
The new video cube, although not specifically called for during the 2008 brainstorming session, is a response to "bringing the outside in, and the inside out," said Kimmel president Anne Ewers Wednesday.
