News Brief

Campus Restaurant closed for repairs After changing hands over a month ago, Campus Restaurant on 40th Street closed last Monday for both repairs and renovations. According to owner Erkan Elcin, an inspector came and told him that the restaurant needed to be painted and repaired. Elcin said that Campus Restaurant will "hopefully" reopen either today or tomorrow, once the repairs are completed and the inspector has come and confirmed that they may reopen. Instead of seeing this week of mandated renovations as a problem, Elcin said he looked at it as an opportunity to renew and revamp the restaurant. With seven people working on the repairs and renovations, including an artist from Philadelphia's Moore College of Art and Design and Elcin's artistic wife and her friends, Elcin says he is confident that customers will be impressed with the changes he has made. "I believe we did a lot of good work here," he said, adding that the previous owner was busy with several businesses and did not always keep conditions at an optimum level. "They didn't take care of it very well here.... He couldn't give it attention here, and that's why we try our best right now," he said. Not only has Elcin fixed up the physical space, but he plans to spice up the menu by adding Turkish cuisine, including Turkish-influenced gyros and pizzas, to the restaurant's offerings. Perhaps, sometime in the next few weeks, diners seeking exotic, ethnic fare will have a new, and newly painted, Turkish option to add to the long list of cultural restaurants in University City. -- Blair Kaminsky