Restaurateur's new eatery looks to the future

Every restaurant lets its customers choose what they want to eat and drink. But Stephen Starr's new restaurant will give customers a different kind of choice -- what color lighting they want flooding their table while they eat their sushi. Brought by the man behind some of Philadelphia's most popular restaurants -- the Continental, Buddakan, Tangerine and Blue Angel -- Pod will be landing on Penn's campus no later than October 3. Located at 37th and Sansom streets, Pod will serve Asian-style cuisine in a retro-futuristic setting intended to conjure up a 1960s Japanese version of the 21st century. Designed by David Rockwell -- one of the most famous in his field -- Pod is expected to seat up to 200 people. Under the direction of Chef Naoki Uchiyama, a well-known Japanese chef from California, Pod will offer everything from Maki rolls to dim sum. And according to Starr, the dishes will be of the highest quality but for a lower price than his other restaurants, ranging from $20 to $40. A conveyor-belt sushi bar -- one of four in the country and the first in Philadelphia -- will roll straight from the kitchen to offer a variety of sushi dishes on color-coded plates. Each color plate will have a different price. The restaurant will feature two big "pods" -- each seating up to 12 people -- and seven "deuce-pods" for groups of two. Up to nine buttons will run along the wall of each of the two larger pods, allowing diners to change the color of their seating area. Following the restaurant's light motif, even the seats in the waiting lounge will be "activated by your butt when you sit on them," Starr explained. Even the unisex bathrooms -- "small, utilitarian," and designed like those in an airplane -- fit with Pod's retro-futuristic theme. As a humorous quirk, overhead each stall's door, an icon of a man sitting on a toilet will light up red when a bathroom is in use. According to Starr, restaurants should provide a cinematic experience. And Pod will be no different. "It's expensive to go out; you should be getting more than food," said Starr, who often refers to his customers as an audience. Toward the center of the restaurant, a plasma-screen television will display video clips -- some "trippy and spacey" and others "tongue in cheek" -- interspersed with footage of the restaurant. The delayed timing of the cameras in Pod will allow diners to see themselves on the screen a few minutes after they enter the restaurant. Throughout Pod, lights will project images and patterns of color on the floor. And overhead, fluorescent tubes encircling the restaurant will bathe the restaurant in a dim, pink glow. In the back, a private dining place to seat 55 people will feature "Austin-Powerish" shag curtains and lights of pink, blue and red. "In one sense it's a show, but at the same time, there are lots of layers of details that make up these scenes," said Bradley Bartram, Starr's director of culinary operations. Everything within Pod, down to its custom-made chairs -- white, curved and minimal -- and its heating vents -- each a neat row of three white circles -- fits with the restaurant's decor. Originally, Starr had been toying with several ideas for the restaurant, among them a family-style Italian eatery. But Starr dropped the idea early on. "There's nothing compelling about that," Starr said. "I felt we really had to do something that would blow your mind, to get people from Center City and the suburbs to come." Like Starr, University real estate officials believe the restaurant will be popular not only with Penn students but also with Philadelphia residents. "Stephen has the ability to bring people from all parts of the city," said John Greenwood, a top official for the University's real estate company. "I think Pod is going to blow people away," Bartram said. "The restaurants that [Starr has built] so far have generated a good deal of national attention, and Pod will definitely take its share.

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