“We love to be praised by our patrons. But to receive an accolade like this from the Philadelphia business community has been exhilarating. “ – Jon Myerow, Tria
Tria was the result of restaurateur Jon Myerow’s many years of industry experience leading to some questions:
Why do most great wine restaurants require dressing up and spending lots of cash?
Why are so many wine professionals snobby—it’s just (really good) grape juice!
Why do most great beer establishments have more than a hint of frat party?
Why aren’t great wine and beer often found in the same restaurant?
After all, wine and beer are millennia-old fermented beverages that are in part responsible for civilization itself—without such potable beverages (water was generally unsafe for consumption), man could not have settled in one place.
With Tria, Myerow’s goal was to cajole wine into loosening up, force beer to grow up, put them in the same room and hope they’d get along. As it turned out, they get along famously with each other and with cheese. (If wine and cheese is one of the great culinary marriages of all time, then beer and cheese is a steamy secret affair that is just being discovered.)
The first Tria location (Rittenhouse Square) opened in 2004 at the corner of 18th and Sansom Streets. The second Tria location (Washington Square West), opened in 2007 at 12th & Spruce. The small, painstakingly chosen seasonal wine, cheese and beer menus focus on artisanal, as opposed to industrial, products—stuff made by passionate people, not brand managers and food scientists. A menu of light café fare complements Tria’s fermented specialties.
Most of Tria’s products are relatively obscure, so education is a big part of the concept. The menus are designed to encourage exploration, rather than to intimidate. The passionate staff is carefully selected—the acceptance rate is lower than Harvard’s. Staff members are trained for 90 minutes every week to guide guests towards pleasurable and customized fermentation experiences. From the beginning, guests grew thirsty for even more knowledge and their pleas inspired management to open the Tria Fermentation School at 16th & Walnut in 2006, which was quickly named one of America’s 50 Most Amazing Wine Experiences by Food & Wine magazine.
In 2007, Michael McCaulley, one of the Philadelphia region’s leading wine educators and restaurant professionals, became a partner in Tria. Michael was involved in Tria from the start as a consultant, but as a partner he has continually improved the company’s wine program and general operations.
This year Tria opened a new concept called Biba—a simplified, but not dumbed down, version of Tria that is designed for relatively easy expansion. Tria’s management believes that every Philadelphia neighborhood should have a place like Tria or Biba—and is working to make this a reality.
Tria has garnered terrific press over the years, including four Best of Philly™ awards from Philadelphia Magazine and two James Beard Foundation Award nominations. But the most appreciated accolades come from Tria’s extraordinarily loyal patrons who have made Tria both busy and vibrant.
To learn more about Tria, visit www.triacafe.com.
Tria will be honored with the Retailer of the Year award at the 28th annual Excellence Awards on November 18. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation. For more information or to register, click here.
