Reviewing a chain restaurant is a funny proposition. If staff members aredoing their jobs, everything — from the food to the decor to the paper towels in the bathroom — will be consistent, each decision driven by prognostications from corporate higher-ups and justified with sales reports.
The downside to this is that, designed to appeal to as broad a range of customers as possible, sit-down restaurant chains rarely elevate the discourse around dining (the fast-casual phenomenon is something else altogether). In my experience, expectations may be met during a chain dining experience, but they are rarely exceeded —and they’re often quite low to begin with.
At the same time, chains,especially regional ones,cannot only provide exemplary service, good foodand a good time —they can become community institutions as beloved as any mom-and-pop diner or personal, chef-y BYO.
Take The Pour House, spun off from regional sports bar P.J. Whelihan’s a decade ago to capitalize on a craft beer movement just starting to boom. The gastropub-slash-family restaurant has spread across the Delaware, with locations in Exton and North Wales, Pennsylvania, but its flagship inhabits the space at 124 North Haddon Avenue in Westmont.
P.J.W. Restaurant Group also owns The ChopHouse in Gibbsboro as well as Treno, a pizza spot in Westmont, and the upcoming Central Tacos and Tequila, which will open on the same Haddon Avenue strip.
What The Pour House offers is a chain version of the neighborhood gastropub experience. In some areas, like their locally focused beer list, The Pour House transcends this, offering a draft list as thoughtfully sourced as at any bar for beer nerds in the area.
In other places —like the brunch menu, rolled out about six months ago —it’s so-so.
The decor at The Pour House strikes a balance somewhere between that gastropub vibe and Boomer Dad finished basem*nt: there are Black Sabbath posters on the walls, Don Henley crooning through the sound system, and one side of an entire hallway lined with framed LP covers from the likes of the Ramones, David Bowieand Jimi Hendrix.
This dadly atmosphere does double duty for millennials and their parents alike: Get a babysitter and go out for dinner and drinks at night, then come back the next morning for brunch and family time with the kids and their grandparents.
The competent, friendly servers at The Pour House are clearly as used to dealing with kids as they are with grownups who have had a few too many: our party entered one Sunday morning with an energetic 3-year-old leading the way, and the hostess was happy to let his mom stash their stroller in a corner of the foyer. A pack of crayons and coloring placemat materialized along with our menus before we even had to ask. These women were clearly seasoned professionals.
Once seated in our booth and sipping speedily-produced coffee, it was time to consider harder beverages. The draft list includes selections from Jersey brewers like Bolero Snort, River Horse, Ludlam Islandand Dark City. Non-local pours included a dry-hopped cider from Pennsylvania’s Wyndridge Farm;a peachy, sour Berliner Weisse from Ohio, and varieties from bigger craft houses like Victory, Allagashand Stone. But we were there for brunch, which meant skipping beer in favor of co*cktails specifically developed for the morning after.
Bloody Marys, spiked coffees, mimosasand Bellinis were on the menu, but I had my eye on a different hair of the dog. You may have heard that Pedialyte, makers of the electrolyte-rich beverage originally intended to hydrate little kids suffering from stomach flu, has begun marketing to hungover adults in addition to harried parents. Grown-ups have long used the beverage as an off-label cure after partying too heartily, and now the company is catching on.
The Pour House is pioneering the next wave in brunch drinks with a “Restorative” section of the beverage menu devoted to fruity, colorful co*cktails incorporating the rehydration beverage.
“We came up with those for our guests that might be struggling on a Saturday or Sunday morning,” Mike Perro, who works as director of operations in New Jersey for P.J.W., told me. Despite combining two hangover cures in one, the Pedialyte co*cktails seem designed to get drinkers back into party mode, masking the booze behind sweet, fruity flavors.
Perro said they started with the recipe for an Orange Crush —a co*cktail made with orange juice, flavored vodka, limeand triple sec that hides its significant alcohol content behind the flavor of fresh-squeezed citrus — and then swapped in Pedialyte. The result is the Weekend Krush, made with Three Olives Orange vodka, orange juiceand orange Pedialyte.
Of course I ordered one, along with a serviceable but unremarkable Bloody.
Warning: Gen Xers and millennials may be mentally transported to their elementary school cafeteria upon tasting the Weekend Krush. Its flavor eerily replicates that of orange Squeez-It, a sugar-loaded, artificially colored drink marketed to kids in the last few decades of the 20th century. It’s not exactly Proust’s madeleine, but the out-of-body effect is the same. (Or maybe that’s just the vodka.)
I experienced a similar moment of sense memory when I bit into my breakfast sandwich a few minutes later — only this time, the experience was stopping at Wawa on the way to work. The Pour House’s breakfast sandwich is like a dressed-up Sizzli, and I mean this as a compliment of the highest order.
The toasted English muffin was tender yet substantial and structurally sound. The spiced maple sausage was juicy and the scrambled eggs fluffy, topped with a creamy slick of melted American cheese. (An unnecessary ruffle of baby arugula was easy to ignore.)What more could you possibly want from a breakfast sandwich?
Well, the kitchen could have pressed the patty a little more thinly in the center before cooking so that it would match the area of the muffin once done, and more acidity in the sriracha maple mustard spread on one half of the muffin would better cut the richness of the other ingredients, but these are minor quibbles. Its accompanying side, though — described as “potato, onion, and pepper hash” on the menu —was simply deep-fried cubes of potato tossed with a few bits of sauteed onion and green pepper. Not what I expected, in this case. But still pretty tasty with a little ketchup and Frank’s Red Hot.
Another bright spot appeared where brunch menus often falter. Amid heavier dishes like Caramel Apple French Toast and the egg-and-bacon topped Hangover Burger, The Pour House offers a few options for folks who eschewed heavy drinking the night before in favor of brisk exercise and an early bedtime. One of them is the California Breakfast Bowl, which turned out to be one of the best things on the menu. (“It’s surprising how well it sells,” Perro said.)
The quinoa, which can easily be made mushy and textureless, was light and al dente, with a pleasant snap; lime Caesar dressing gave the bowl a savory tang that I’m eager to replicate at home. The spinach was a tender, vibrant green; the avocado ripe;the pico de gallo flavorful, and the egg perfectly poached. It might be the most well-executed dish on the brunch menu —but our party accidentally stumbled on a way to improve it.
Our toddler tablemate had had his heart set on pancakes that morning, but the closest thing on the brunch menu was chicken and waffles. (“They’re just pancakes with squares,” his mom assured him.)
While he happily chowed down on the sweet, tender Belgian-style waffles —which were served with honey butter and disappointing, but not unexpected, imitation rather than real maple syrup — we added the accompanying fried chicken to the breakfast bowl. The pounded-thin breast was more like an extra-large chicken tender than proper fried chicken, but it was hot, flavorful, crispyand juicy, the perfect antidote to the quinoa bowl’s lack of deep-fried ingredients. It’s all about balance, you know?
True to its name, though, the Hangover Burger was all excess. It appeared as an open-faced mess of ingredients from no less than three different animals, layered precariously on an outsized brioche bun and supplemented by a wholly unnecessary pile of stale, under-seasoned kettle chips.
The patty seemedpre-formed, with a mushy texture (my bad, I suppose, for requesting medium rare. Again ... expectations). Two oversized slices of bacon, a fried egg with its yolk brokenand “crispy onion straws” were barely held together with melted cheddar. The chipotle aioli was barely noticeable under this dogpile of greasy, heavy ingredients. Brunch food by nature is a little over the top. (But if I had been suffering after a night of heavy drinking, I’m pretty sure the Hangover Burger would have sent me reeling to the restroom.)
Brunch at The Pour House might not give master-of-the form Sabrina’s a run for its money, but it’s a solid option — especially if your home crew is a big one and you could really use a cold one or a cup of Irish coffee alongside your late-morning meal.
Think of it as one notch more interesting than diner fare, a few down from the kind of establishment where the menu is peppered with the words “house made” —but that’s OK.
Hey, if you weren’t here, you’d still be in your pajamas right now.
Alexandra Jones reviews New Jersey restaurants for the Courier-Post. After seven years working with farmers in the Philadelphia region's food system, she now writes about food and drink, agriculture, and sustainability. She's as passionate about artisan cheeses and heirloom vegetables as she is about chicken tenders or a well-crafted hoagie. Read more of her work at alexjones.contently.com and send questions and recommendations to Alexandra at dininginsouthjersey@gmail.com.
Dining Review
Brunch at The Pour House, 124 North Haddon Ave., Westmont
(856) 869-4600 or pjspourhouse.com
Food: ★★★
Atmosphere: ★★★
Service: ★★★★
Value: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★
Cuisine: American
Hours:Brunch is Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Recommended items: California Breakfast Bowl, Chicken and Waffles, Breakfast Sandwich, Weekend Krush
Price range: $5-$25
Late night: Yes
Brunch: Yes
BYOB: No
Outdoor dining: Yes
Live entertainment: No
Wheelchair accessible: Yes
Type of Parking: Lot
What the stars mean: Five is excellent; four is very good; three is good; two is fair, one is poor.
