He bought a cafe, but didn’t know it was a polling place: Inside Philly’s diverse election spots

When Joseph Oh bought the Gold Standard Cafe from the original owner, he thought he knew most of the ins and outs of the restaurant itself. Then election day in West Philly approached.

“I learned that twice a year, the dining room is a polling place,” Oh recalled with a laugh. He didn’t fight it. Fifteen years later, the tradition is still going strong.

Days ahead of an election, organizers will roll voting booths and other materials into the restaurant and cafe. The booths sit covered in the corner of the dining room until the night before, when staff stay late and turn the area into a polling place.

The kitchen stays open for takeout only. And Oh’s team sells coffees, teas, and pastries from the front area.

On Tuesday’s sweltering hot primary day, voters could be seen snagging iced coffees and matchas on their way out.

“We are a community cafe and our model is kind of a third place in the neighborhood, so we’re so happy to do it,” Oh said.

City Commissioner Seth Bluestein said part of Philly’s election day culture is ensuring polling places are within walking distance and as accessible for voters as possible.

“So if we are able to find a location that is in their division or in their neighborhood where they can walk to the polling place somewhere that the community is familiar with, we’re going to make that choice as many times as we can,” he said.

Bluestein said community members can pitch polling place options to the elections department, and team members will scout them for interest and accessibility before putting them up to a board vote.

The commissioner added that polling places like the Gold Standard and nearby hair salons or private residences highlight the city’s character.

“It’s not just schools and rec centers,” Bluestein said. “It’s barbershops, it’s churches, it’s music venues. It’s a lot of really cool places that I think emphasize the diversity of Philadelphia.”

In exchange, voting sites get a small incentive ($150 per district; locations that can fit multiple districts can collect multiple rental fees) and bragging rights.

Catherine Blunt, a candidate for a 9th Division committeeperson slot, campaigned Tuesday outside Hair Vyce Studio — a polling place and hair salon along Baltimore Avenue.

She said that a lot of people (and media outlets) have oohed and aahed at the novelty of having voters gather at barbershops and hair salons, for instance.

It’s true. Year after year, news outlets highlight Philly’s nontraditional polling locations, and national outlets include them in roundups of the “weirdest” or most “unusual‚” stacking Philly’s Mummers Museum next to a laundromat in Chicago or a tractor barn in Iowa. The Inquirer wrote about this very thing eight years ago.

But Blunt says in Philly, that sort of display just feels normal.

“We’re putting polling places wherever we can find people,” she said. “It’s a Philadelphia kind of thing. Wherever a proprietor will allow us to be. It’s uniquely Philly.”

Once voting closes at 8 p.m. and the voting booths are removed, Oh’s staff at Gold Standard will spend a late night putting the dining room back together again. They will resume regular service hours at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.