Barbecue Sauce

There is a new theme restaurant in town, and while it's not a Hard Rock Cafe or a Planet Hollywood with high-profile investors, its developers see it as the prototype of what they envision as a very successful chain. It's called Heritage, and its concept is African American culture. The main investment group is a London outfit called Karibu International, but there are local partners in the Philadelphia venture. Heritage, open four weeks, is at Broad and Chestnut, in the former Western Savings Bank building - complete with a 30-year-old bullet hole in the window fronting Broad Street.

Not all that many years ago, a restaurant specializing in roast chicken might exist, but its location would be a busy highway and the decor pure truck stop. Roasters makes it perfectly clear that it is not that sort of restaurant. The address is an easy stroll north from Rittenhouse Square and its affluent neighbors, and the place itself is as warm and homey - pretty, even - as a country kitchen. Rough-textured white walls, tile floors and banquettes upholstered in cheerful provincial print are the basics.

Pickle Packers International, the major trade association for the pickle industry, reports: Americans eat about 9 pounds of pickles per person per year - nearly double the amount consumed 25 years ago. There are 36 basic varieties of pickles. A good pickle has an audible crunch at 10 paces. America's pickle favorites, in order of preference, are dill pickles, sweet pickles, pickle relish, bread and butter pickles and pickled peppers. Americans prefer pickles with "warts," whereas Europeans are partial to smooth pickles.

The great debate Wednesday morning did not center on whether the children at Graeme Park in Horsham liked switchel, a Colonial drink they made. It centered on whether it tasted closer to pickle juice, steak sauce or a very thin barbecue sauce. As Stephen Colella, 12, and his nine companions worked on threading hand- dyed wool yarn through small looms made out of Popsicle sticks, another group of children helped make the odd drink from spring water, molasses, brown sugar, ginger and vinegar.

It's been three years since this column checked out the food doings at the Rittenhouse Hotel and Condominiums, where a new executive chef, James E. Coleman, has been in residence since September. Coleman oversees the menus at Restaurant 210, TreeTops and Boathouse Row, plus the afternoon tea served in the lobby. Restaurant 210, which overlooks Rittenhouse Square, is the most formal space; TreeTops, which also overlooks the Square, is informal, but decidedly upscale; the windowless Boathouse Row is a preppy-casual bar where customers can watch football or belt out a karaoke tune on the appropriate night.

TYSON MICROWAVE CHICKEN SANDWICHES. Chicken breast, barbecue, and mini chicken sandwiches. $1.29 to $1.39 per 4 to 4.4-oz. box of one frozen sandwich or two mini sandwiches. CAROLYN: Colonel Sanders had better watch out. A new chicken product is rising through the ranks and its name is Tyson. The company has just produced a line of new frozen chicken sandwiches. The less said about the mini sandwiches the better. But the two chicken breast sandwiches are first-rank. The regular one features a peppery fried coating similar to the Colonel's.

Chubby's is a funny place. It's just a neighborhood steak joint with booths, a counter, a juke box and the best neon sign in all of Roxborough. The menu tells you they have three kinds of potato chips - regular, barbecue and sour cream. But it also functions as the 19th hole for the nearby Walnut Lane golf course, what with all those top-shelf liquors on display. No cocktails, though. So you're likely to share counter space with a teen-ager wolfing down a pizza steak and a foursome tossing back Stoly on ice. The mix of patrons makes Chubby's an easy-going place, and the food's just right, too. On our Cultural Pluralism through Eating tour, Chubby's is the True Phluffya stop.

"Sometimes we have to suffer to get the best of life's lessons. " - Kathleen Sullivan, former "CBS This Morning" co-anchor, who lost 18 pounds on Weight Watchers, and will be piloting "After the Headlines" for NBC. FERGIE EYES ROYAL FILM ROLE "Fergie," the red-haired estranged wife of the duke of York, is said to be considering a film role as Boadicea - the first-century queen who resisted the Roman occupation of Britain. The Sunday Times in London reported that the duchess of York, formerly Sarah Ferguson, was looking at a script for film-maker Ken Russell, in which Boadicea is flogged naked and her women warriors marched into battle clad in just paint.

Gulf Coast is the new restaurant inhabiting International House in West Philadelphia, and its outdoor dining garden already seems as popular as it was when Eden was there. The new place attempts to focus on the cuisines of the Gulf area, which means the menu runs from touches of Cajun to dishes whose names conjure up visions of Mexico and even Jamaica. Gulf Coast opened in early summer, and it has been spending the tranquil summer months getting ready for fall and the blitzkrieg of students from Penn and Drexel.

Dining outdoors along the Delaware is big business. Summer crowds have been jamming the various eateries, which stretch from north of the Ben Franklin Bridge to the shadow of the Walt Whitman. But guess what? The city has two rivers. Remember the Schuylkill? If a couple of trips to the River Cafe in Manayunk is enough for a valid appraisal, here's another indoor/outdoor spot that is attracting good crowds. Especially on weekends. The River Cafe is housed in what was once a textile mill.