p.j. clarke's
Projects
Oral History/Documentary
Service the P.J. Clarke's Way
2026-2029
Long before Danny Meyer, New York was home to its own form of age-old, distinguished, robust, and hearty service. Enthusiastic, engaged, and affable, it was also proficient, quick-witted, informed, and demonstrative. It knew what it knew and was willing to tell you, and if you let it, it would treat anyone who came through those doors like family.
Under the leadership of Phil Scotti, P.J. Clarke's has sought to embody those older characteristics and introduce them to new generations. By framing his restaurants with a service-first approach, Scotti is building more than a brand - he is helping to highlight what makes restaurants great.
Food Memoir
P.J.'s Cellar
Fall 2026
Aside from big, gaudy, known, show-offy named bottles, Washington, DC is not much of a wine town. But it should be. Only California can match what can happen in Washington - restaurants and bars can import directly from overseas. What an American thing it is to jump over the middleman, especially past the red-and-gray taped, over-regulated wine industry.
P.J.'s Cellar allows individuals to store a dozen bottles on the premises to be enjoyed at the restaurant. Culled from a unique collaboration between Takoma Wine, our own DC-based wine collective, and P.J. Clarke's, the venerated New York institution, P.J.'s Cellar is more than just a place to store wine - it is the recipe for bringing people back to restaurants, a formula for intimacy, friendship, community, and the true wine life.
Planning for wine is like planning for beauty - it means a commitment to one's neighborhood, one's world, and advertises and plans for future joys to come. It is a hopeful act of designation - of putting things in their proper place. Making public one's wine decisions - in permanent, book form - is a kind of civic and social faith, in which one records a diary of desire, hope, and consolation. Reserving days and times for wine is a kind of pledge-to-be-present, in the places where life really happens.
Interested in joining? Email wine@takoma.us for more information. Or click here to learn more.
