Uptown Cafeteria

Rating:

If only Uptown Cafeteria and Support Group tasted as good as it looks.

The Calhoun Square newcomer is the work of Parasole Restaurant Holdings, the hospitality think tank behind Manny’s Steakhouse, Salut Bar Americain, Chino Latino and other mainstream cash cows, sorry, crowd-pleasers.

If any local restaurateurs were doubting the power that design plays in the dining-out experience, they need only take a seat near a wait station and start tallying the endless credit card swipes. Hello, gold mine.

Here’s how good the place looks: If it were on a casting cattle call for a reality TV series, Uptown Cafeteria would be handed a contract, immediately. The company’s house designers, New York City-based Moschella + Roberts, have skillfully woven together a contemporary-yet-retro setting. It’s people-watching central, and hordes of what a friend of  mine refers to as “the Hot Community” are clearly thinking of it as their new clubhouse. Who needs online social networking when there’s Uptown Cafeteria?

Just walking in is a mood enhancer. Glass garage doors doubling as windows lure the outdoors in, and both a central bar and an open kitchen (flanked by the now-requisite counter) animate an already animated space. A color palette of saturated oranges and aquas, popping against several shades of white and cheesy-hilarious plastic wood panels, recalls a “Mad Men”-era Howard Johnson’s (ironically, the 20-ish demographic probably draws a blank on the HoJo’s name). Geometrically arranged school cafeteria trays adorn the entrances, and the men’s room sports what is easily the city’s wittiest above-the-urinals art.

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