Bob Koch
Hone is headed to the 708 E. Johnson St. space formerly home to Forequarter.
Michael Parks is excited to be opening a restaurant at 708 E. Johnson St., formerly home to Forequarter. “The location is great,” he observes, crediting restaurateur Jonny Hunter, who ran Forequarter, with making that corner a real destination, and also crediting Dewey of the Caribou (real name: Mark Schmelzkopf ) and Chad Vogel of the Robin Room as making this stretch of Johnson a place to be.
Parks, an alum of Boar & Barrel and the Settle Down Tavern, is owner and general manager of the new restaurant, to be called Hone. It’s named after the tool that chefs use to sharpen their knives, but also carries tones of continually sharpening or refining an experience, which Parks hopes to do with the eatery. “It has a nice ring to it,” he says.
The menu will be flexible and expandable. To start, the focus will be on takeout, “for people who want less contact,” says Parks. He envisions “portable foods that you can take home in a 10-15 minute walk.” Acknowledging that many people are in perilous financial situations right now, he also plans on having a pay-what-you-can soup special as a centerpiece of the menu.
That hallmark soup will be budae jigae, or “army stew,” a Korean dish that Parks describes as “the original Korean American fusion dish,” born out of Korean women working at American army bases and a protein shortage after the Korean War. Budae jigae usually features processed American meats like hot dogs and Spam along with kimchi and gochujang.
“It was a dish I really enjoyed when I was in Korea,” says Parks. “It’s a nice story and a nice dish.”
Parks also wants to feature take-and-bake dinners, that single people could feast on for multiple nights or could feed a family. “It reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom was working and we would put a Stouffer’s lasagna in the oven and make a fresh salad.” But a housemade restaurant entree using fresh and local ingredients appeals more to consumers now.
Parks observes that people who work downtown and drive past on East Johnson on their way home to suburbs north and east can also take advantage of these take-and-bake dinners.
Including indoor dining for a limited number of people is something Parks still wants to do, and he wants to make that a “high-end experience, reservation only, maybe a ticketed event.” The inspiration for this came from his observation that he knew people who were dining out almost every night pre-pandemic who are now going out “maybe one time a month. So that one time should be something they really enjoy.” The restaurant’s small space means this experience is going to be limited to about 10 people at a time, at least while the pandemic is still limiting indoor occupancy.
A restaurant that can go from a pay-as-you-can soup to a ticketed chef’s meal (these are sometimes called upstairs-downstairs kitchens) “creates a nice synergy with the multiple levels, and everybody benefits,” says Parks.
A virtual neighborhood meeting to discuss the project has been scheduled for Dec. 7 via Zoom, and Parks is eager to hear the community’s thoughts about a new restaurant in the space. He would like to open in March, “just about when it’s warm enough to open a patio.”
