Kellogg’s Diner Team Taps Thai Diner Alum To Relaunch Williamsburg Social Club

The exterior of the old JR & Son bar. The Kellogg’s team is now the caretakers of 575 Lorimer Street. | Google Maps

JR & Son is a new Italian American spot in old digs

The relaunch of Kellogg’s Diner was a tour de force that required archival research of the century-old space’s various lives. Now, the team is bringing that same spirit of Williamsburg preservation down the street, relaunching JR & Son. Since 1934, the 575 Lorimer Street address had been home to an Italian social club. Under new direction and owners, the restaurant’s Italian American menu will pay homage to its past. It’s aiming for a spring opening.

JR and his family took over the space in 1976 (previously called Charlie’s), naming it JR & Son, until it closed during the pandemic. Back then, JR & Son was more of a dive bar, the kind of place with framed photographs of family members and visitors papering the walls. The new JR & Son will straddle both, in a kitchen helmed by Patricia Vega, formerly chef de cuisine at Noho hotspot Thai Diner and a Top Chef alum.

This is Vega’s first time leading a kitchen from its inception, but it feels full circle as her first executive chef role was making pasta from scratch more than a decade ago at Sotto 13, a small neighborhood Italian restaurant in the West Village. “I knew eventually that’s what I was going to be doing,” she says of returning to the cuisine.

Chef Patricia Vega.

The menu is intended to reimagine what would’ve been enjoyed at the social club in the ‘70s or ‘80s, when this neck of Williamsburg had more Italian businesses. She even considered jokingly bringing back the one-time haute garnish curly parsley.

“I’m not reinventing the wheel; I just want to keep it simple and make it really good,” she says of her menu philosophy. It’s seemingly in line with other nearby Williamsburg spots like Bernie’s and Mo’s General, that also serve Italian Americanish food in tavern-y digs.

The aim is for it to be a late-night industry spot, says Vega. “I want it to be the kind of spot the guy across the street, or a busser who finished his shift at midnight can come over and have a meal. I want it to be comforting.” Think: classics like a raw bar, many pastas, and some chop house items. Dishes on the menu she’s been playing around with, like an herbaceous arancini salad, feel like a culmination of her years of culinary training at Thai Diner as well.

JR & Son will also have a full bar led by Raul Flores (a Pegu Club alum). The food menu can be ordered there or in the main dining room. Vega will also be joined by Amanda Perdomo (formerly the pastry chef of Kellogg’s).

It’s a stacked ownership group that has overlap in its family tree. In addition to the Kellogg’s team led by Louis Skibar, Michelle Lobo (Nura, Otis, and Pan Pan Vino Vino) will join JR & Son as an owner. Lobo’s former executive chef at Nura — Jackie Carnesi — now oversees Kellogg’s and Kellogg’s co-owner Nico Arze designed Lobo’s restaurant. Arze and collaborator Matthew Maddy are working to keep the design at the revamped JR & Son in line with the original look of the social club, replete with tiled flooring and old memorabilia.

Of the vibe of the 50-seat room, Vega says: “Cool, velvety, and dark — you’re going to feel good here.”

It's a smart location: Now, when the after-work crowd exits an entrance of the Lorimer L train, this team has them cornered on either end.