The Dutch in Pennsport reopens as The Dutchess, with a sandwich menu

Pennsport now has a sandwich shop, and it’s the latest in a series of South Philadelphia restaurant moves.

Chefs Lee Styer and Jessie Prawlucki-Styer owned the destination Fond, starting in 2009 on East Passyunk and after 2012 at 11th and Tasker Streets, across from East Passyunk’s Singing Fountain. In 2016, they joined chef Joncarl Lachman in opening a diner called The Dutch at Fourth and Cross Streets in a mile away in Pennsport. (Cute pun: Lee Styer comes from Pennsylvania Dutch stock, and Lachman’s family is from the Netherlands.)

Then the pandemic bore down. Lachman bowed out of The Dutch (he now has Winkel in Center City). The Dutch’s chef since the opening, Kevin Watters, became an owner. Last spring the Styers decided to take a more casual route at Fond, turning it into The Dutch while adding cocktails and all-day menus. At the time, they also shut down the Pennsport eatery.

Until now.

The Pennsport location (1527 S. Fourth St.) opens June 8 as The Dutchess, serving a menu Wednesday through Sunday. It’s now fast casual, with a takeout window outside on the Fourth Street side and a counter for indoor ordering; customers can dine-in, as well and fetch their own orders.

It’s no longer a diner.

Watters oversees a simpler menu of sandwiches (an egg sandwich, four burgers including a breakfast burger, two chicken sandwiches, and falafel flatbread), plus two kinds of fries, chow chow pickles, and La Fermiere yogurt.

For dessert, there’s Prawlucki-Styer’s malted milk chocolate and salted caramel cho-cho ice cream.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday.