Espresso by day, cocktails and sushi counter by night: Palm Vintage brings Miami vibes across the street from City Hall

Palm Vintage, located on the ground floor of the Ritz-Carlton Residences, contains two concepts within one space. During the day, it’s an airy, welcoming cafe that serves Lavazza espresso drinks, sandwiches, and bagels. Before dinner, the space morphs into a cocktail lounge that serves sushi rolls and sashimi sets that rival some of Philly’s best sushi restaurants.

Palm Vintage opened as a cafe in May and soft-opened dinner service last week, once they had obtained their liquor license. Their grand opening, which will highlight their evening offerings, is scheduled for Sept. 29. Until then, owner Houston Yang, 37, is continually tweaking the details of each dish and set.

The space’s name is meant to evoke Miami — where Yang loves to visit — and the old school, classic feel of its location.

Palm Vintage does not have an omakase: the space can only accommodate one counter, and that is dedicated to the cafe-cocktail bar. But its menu reads like a high-end sushi restaurant’s. There’s a mini omakase for $65 and a “treasure of the sea” set for $99.

The difference between sushi at Palm Vintage and, say, Oroshi, the nearby home of affordable omakase on Broad Street, is that at Palm Vintage, you receive all your pieces of nigiri and sashimi at once, rather than one by one.

The types of fish served are crowd-pleasers like salmon, fatty tuna, uni, and hamachi. Both the fish sets and cocktails are frequently decorated with gold leaf and edible flowers, appealing to the Instagram set and setting Palm Vintage apart from other casual sushi restaurants in Philly, including the others owned by Yang.

Yang is the entrepreneur behind Fuwa Teriyaki Grill and Fushimi, both located in the food court of The Shops at Liberty Place. Originally from Fuzhou, China, he moved to Philly as a child. Yang’s parents, who now help out at his food court sushi restaurants, owned a Chinese-American takeout restaurant in Delaware County that they sold a decade ago.

Yang and his wife lived in the Ritz-Carlton residences between 2023 and 2025 and during that time, identified a need within the building for a spot that served healthy dinners but also cocktails. “My wife loves sushi,” he explained as one impetus behind Palm Vintage’s sushi-driven menu. “But she also loves drinking, so I had to open a bar along with a sushi place.”

Yang was also inspired by how readily available fresh sushi can be in Japan. “Two years ago, I grabbed sushi at an airport in Japan and had it on a flight — it was so easy,” he said. This sparked the idea that high-end sushi could be a casual experience. For years, going out for sushi in Philly has meant either grabbing affordable takeout, or splashing out for an expensive omakase. More recently, the gap in between those options has shrunk significantly, with the openings of places like Oroshi, Yanaga Kappo Izakaya, and the upstairs of Kissho House.

Palm Vintage took over the space that once belonged to Waterfront Deli, and hired many of the former deli’s workers for their daytime cafe. This also means that they encounter the same regulars, many of them residents of the Ritz-Carlton Residences, on their morning coffee runs.

Palm Vintage’s craft cocktails are mellow and approachable and mostly within the $17 to $19 range. Like their sushi, they often use startlingly high-end ingredients, such as Hibiki Japanese whiskey.

“It’s a place to get nice drinks, nice food, but that food just happens to be sushi,” said Yang.

Palm Vintage is open every day from 8:30 a.m. to midnight. It operates as a cafe from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the kitchen spends 4 to 5 p.m. flipping to sushi dinner service (the space remains open during this time). Dinner is served from 5 p.m. to midnight. Cocktails are served from 11 a.m. to midnight.

Palm Vintage, 1414 S Penn Square, 215-883-6690, thepalmvintage.com