The Kitchen at Brown Dog Catering is bringing ‘approachable elegance’ to the Philipsburg food scene
After a devastating fire and the coronavirus pandemic postponed their dreams of opening a restaurant, William DeBoer and Kristin Rigby-DeBoer have finally opened the doors to The Kitchen at Brown Dog Catering in Philipsburg.
The building in which the couple’s Brown Dog Catering business operated, located at 112 E. Pine St. in Philipsburg, was damaged by a fire in May. But now that it’s reopened, the business has expanded to include both a sit-in restaurant and coffee shop.
“We bought this building almost three years ago,” Kristin said. “We worked on it slowly and the goal was always to open a restaurant. We were slowly working our way there. We were doing pop-ups for Oktoberfest, Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day. … Then we started Sunday brunches every Sunday, at the beginning of this year, and they were going really well. And then corona happened, and then the fire.”
Over the past few months, the two have worked to rebuild their restaurant, which will act as a coffee shop in the morning and dinner restaurant in the evening. The coffee shop opened Monday, while the restaurant is set for an Oct. 28 opening. Both the coffee shop and the restaurant will fill voids in Philipsburg’s current dining scene.
“I’m thinking people will grab coffee on their way out of town, and hopefully grab a muffin or baked good,” William said. “We’ll have really simple breakfast fare. It’s not going to be a full breakfast restaurant. That’s not our plan or intention. It’s more about coffee and pastries on your way out the door. We’ll be open until noon and people are more than welcome to come in and hang out like you would at any coffee shop, but we’re hoping people will stop in, grab something on their way out of town and then on the weekends we’ll be a hangout place.”
Kristin added: “Philipsburg is really a bedroom community for State College, so a lot of people who live here are driving over to State College to work at Penn State. We’re hoping to capitalize on that — and Philipsburg doesn’t currently have a coffee shop, so we saw a need and decided we were able to fill it.”
During dinner hours, The Kitchen at Brown Dog Catering will offer an experience Kristin describes as “approachable elegance.”
“The food is going to be slightly upscale, but still approachable,” she said. “We’ve heard from a lot of people in town that what they really miss is having a restaurant where they can take family from out of town or business associates, or go for an anniversary — something that’s a little more fancy than what’s currently here. So, again, we saw a need and we’re going to fill it.”
Menu items include appetizers like khachapuri, a Georgian-style, cheese-stuffed bread topped with a runny egg (“It’s like a little pizza crust stuffed with cheese. It’s cheese on cheese on cheese,” William said. “And who doesn’t like cheese?”); entrees like harissa chicken; and unique desserts, such as goat cheese and rosemary baklava.
“Mainly, the restaurant menu is stuff that we’re interested in and that we think other people will be interested in as well,” Kristin said. “We hope it’ll be very flavorful and we plan to change the menu a few times per year, to go with the seasons and what’s available, and to keep ourselves interested.”
The rennovated business held an open house last week during which the number of people in the building at a time was limited, masks were required and temperatures were taken at the door. Once The Kitchen at Brown Dog Catering is open for regular dinner service, reservations will be required, to likewise control the number of people in the building at one time and allow for social distancing. Reservations can be made by calling 883-5922.
“We’re excited about the way everything looks and we’re excited to be open again. We want to show everyone how far we’ve come. It was just June when we didn’t even have a roof on the building …” Kristin said. “To us, this is an amazing transformation and we want to share it with everyone.”