LANSDOWNE – A walk into Room 55 Restaurant & Banquets will greet a visitor with elegance and warmth from the white walls and LED lighting to the curved blue velvet couches and green walls. Room 55 is a place to visit and enjoy.
Room 55 is at the site of the former AviAnna, which closed in the summer after the owner retired. The new venue at 55 E. Baltimore Ave. opened last month and offers in-house catering with rooms for private rental, in-house dining seating and a takeout window.
“Stop in,” owner/operator Jermaine Mitchell welcomed all. “Stop in, stop in. There’s a lot of platforms – Instagram, Yelp, Google, Facebook. Stop in … Stop in. That’s key for me.”
Mitchell honed his experience as one of the head chefs for the Crystal Tea Room, starting with Finley Catering as a dishwasher working his way up to executive chef. Now, he has a place of his own with Room 55 Restaurant & Banquets.
“I worked a lot of venues, a lot of partnerships, worked for Finley Catering for about 18 years,” he said. “They had the Springfield Country Club, the Ballroom at the Ben, Crystal Tea Room, Union Trust … I was about 16 when I started working with them. I grew up in their system.”
He also was private chef for NBA players, such as Lou Williams James Harden and John Wall, where he catered to their private events whether birthday parties or proms or gender reveals or family events. A challenge, outside of being ready at any time to serve anywhere from seven to 22 people, was making certain the meals he created were within the team’s guidelines.
Mitchell said he had a professional relationship with the AviAnna owners and had rented from them previously to do events at 55 E. Baltimore Ave. as well as other venues they had. So, as retirement neared, they discussed the opportunity to transition into Room 55.
“Room 55 is a very unique place where you can come, get dinner, you can come party, you can come socialize all in a comfortable setting and it gives you that home feeling like you’re in your living room,” Mitchell said. “That was the goal. Everybody who comes through that door says how nice it is, how much they want to come back and how much they want to stay.”
He wants visitors to leave with the memory of a warm, comfortable place to socialize with a very great food and customer service experience. Using only fresh ingredients for his menu items, one of the popular dishes is his alfredo, made with his own recipe, be it shrimp alfredo or salmon alfredo
“The rest I’ll kind of let it speak for itself,” Mitchell said, “and let them give the feedback.”
He also wants to provide an opportunity for his children – Kayla, Jamichael and Kayden – should they want it to work in the hospitality business. However, he also wants them to follow their dreams whether it be doctors, lawyers or another profession.
Angela Edmunds, brand and events manager for Room 55 Restaurant & Banquets, spoke about the transformation that took place to create Room 55 Restaurant & Banquets.
“For this redesign, I was really looking to just elevate the decor and the atmosphere, give it really a nice comfortable vibe to it and make it someplace that would be great for dining and entertaining and lounging so whether it’s something you’re coming to dine in for dinner or if it’s something that you’re booking for a private event or if it was just something that you wanted to come by for happy hour with your friends or if you’re walking by with your dog and sit out in the beer garden in the summer and mix and mingle – just to add a different element,” she explained. “I didn’t want it in any way to come off like a club but something that just felt elevated – elevated but still welcoming and comfortable and warm.”
She shared elements of the metamorphosis.
“It’s little things that you can do,” Edmunds said, adding that they painted everything white, changed the chandeliers and installed LED lighting in the cutouts in the ceiling and on the sconces on the walls. “It makes it fun for guests. What color do you want for your party?”
She explained that the green walls were erected to add texture.
“We want you to have an experience here,” Edmunds said. “We want it to be an experience. So you enter and you have an experience when you’re walking through and you enter … then, there’s the experience that you’re getting while you’re here with the food and the staff and the entertainment and then, there’s the experience you have when you leave. We want you to have a good experience to come back.”
Considering the times with the pandemic, a takeout window was constructed. Although Room 55 is not yet available on GrubHub or Doordash, patrons can visit https://www.room55philly.com/ for the menu or call 610-622-0954. Takeout is available 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. Friday; 2 p.m.to 4 a.m. Saturday; and 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Sundays.
There’s also a dining-in option in the restaurant with the same menu offered. Restaurant hours are 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. There is a hospital-grade disinfection machine used for the dining-in area.
The venue is broken into sections. The lobby dining, or Lounge 1, features tables with floor-length tablecloths and a green wall with a neon “Good Vibes” light where people enjoy taking photos. It had originally been a part of the soft opening and was a crowd pleaser so it stayed up and has continued to be a source of fun.
And, Edmunds explained that anyone who has their own event at Room 55, be it weddings, showers, private parties, book signings and more, anything that’s within the Room’s existing inventory is made available.
“So it’s included – the tables, the basic linens, the chairs, the gold chargers, the vases, different things like that, the ottomans,” she said. “Some people … they like to change up the vibe and make it not as formal. So you have that option – to go with seated dining or to go with couches and that’s all included.”
Lounge 2 straddles Lounge 1 and the Main Room and features its own bar, as well as couches and high tables. Although the venue at the moment is BYOB, servers are provided for events. Edmunds added that Room 55 is currently going through the process to obtain their liquor license. In-house catering is also provided.
The Main Room has LED-lighting inset in the ceilings, bright crystal chandeliers and a wooden dance floor.
Edmunds said the entire facility can be rented, or the rooms can be rented individually. There is a separate entrance through the garden side for those using the Main Room, if it is needed to separate from Lounge 1. To rent the facility or one of the rooms, Edmunds can be reached directly at 215-868-3812 or through the main number.
For New Year’s Eve, Room 55 will be open for dining, takeout and lounging but not for a large party as they have to be cognizant of the pandemic.
“We don’t want to be the reason for an outbreak,” Mitchell said. “There’s a lot of different variables. We’re trying to play it by ear.”
He urged those who are looking for a smaller event and not the masses to visit – and the full menu will be available for dining and takeout until 2 a.m
by Kathleen E. Carey – Daily Times