by Andrew Morrison | Right before I went on holiday a few weeks ago I met up with Justin Tisdall and chef Bryan Satterford and toured the Chinatown construction site of their much-anticipated Juke restaurant. If this is the first you’re hearing of it, here’s the skinny we set down when we broke the good news back in the Fall of 2015:

Justin Tisdall has succumbed to Chambar Effect, that odd force that regularly turns former employees of the perennial Beatty Street favourite (and Scout 25 regular) into restaurateurs — and usually very successful ones.

He and Hawksworth sous chef Bryan Satterford have pooled their resources with the support of Meat & Bread co-owner Cord Jarvie. Together, the triumvirate has secured the brand new, concrete and glass ground floor spot at 182 Keefer Street. The 1,530 sqft location occupies the northwest corner of the new Westbank Building in Chinatown,

With it, they’re planning for a 48 seat, fully licensed fried chicken and rib eatery called Juke. 1/3 of the space will be dedicated to takeaway service (via a window), while the other 2/3 will operate as a full service restaurant. The window will be open all day until close, while the restaurant will be dinner only to start, with Saturday and Sunday brunches. Mmm, fried chicken and waffles!

The menu will feature mainstay sides and proteins, plus four specials rotating in and out, as well as a series of larger plates, like lamb shoulder, whole fish, et cetera. In addition to Jukes’ signature fried chicken and slow-cooked beef ribs, I’m told we can also expect a special fried chicken sandwich of some sort – currently the Hansel of takeaway items (so hot right now).

As a concept, it’s about as sure a thing as can be — nice and simple. It’s also a happenstance nod to local history, as the legendary Vie’s Fried Chicken & Steaks used to be located just down the street back in the Hogan’s Alley days (the mother of one of Tisdall’s old friends worked there for 30 years). Glasfurd & Walker are doing the branding (see also Meat & Bread, Bao Bei), so it’ll have optimum aesthetic appeal, and they’re going for a lively, casual, fun, juke joint sort of vibe where hands are supposed to get dirty. They get the keys around Christmas, and hope to have it open at some point in April, 2016.

The original opening projection was a little ambitious; they’re now looking at launching at some point in May, 2016 (progress evidenced via images below). The interior sounds pretty sweet with a six seat bar and a high top communal table on one end and a further 35 seats (give or take) on the other.

Casey Burgess and Arnold Chan of Ply Architecture were on site that day, scheming over blueprints. They’d marked off areas for the kitchen, take-out area, and dining room, so it wasn’t all that hard for me to imagine the layout (though wrapping my head around a 14 seat patio on Keefer St. is still proving tricky — we only ever got to see that sort of thing during the Chinatown Night Markets and Golden Dumpling Derbies of yore).

In any event, things were visibly speeding up back then, so I imagine they’re really in the thick of it now. Justin has since finished at Chambar and started moonlighting at Wildebeest on the 19th. Both he and Bryan sounded pretty confident in the menu, which had me salivating. And so we wait…

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