On Purpose.
Eclecticism, done right, isn't a lack of identity. It's a wider one. It's a kitchen that's curious about the world and honest about what people actually want to eat. Modern American. Vegetable focus. Asian flavors. Italian. Fish Cookery. Continental Inspiration. Food grown in Lancaster soil.
Per Diem's menu is eclectic in the truest sense — not because we couldn't decide, but because we didn't want to. Because the people who walk through this door don't fit a single profile either. There's the hotel guest who flew in from somewhere and just wants a properly cooked filet with potatoes and a good demi. Something familiar in a new environment. There's the Lititz local who wants a solid happy hour. They know when their favorite bartender is there making drinks and slinging friendly banter. There's the production crew that's been on the Rock Lititz campus, who just want some crispy wings and a beer before last call, so they can crash for the night to do it all again the next day.
We cook and serve for all of them. And we don't think that's a contradiction.
What holds it together isn't a specific cuisine — it's a standard. And a point of view. The food and the bar program are speaking the same language: curious, grounded, unwilling to be copy and paste. There are a thousand restaurants that picked a lane and stayed in it. Safe menus. Predictable pours. Rinse and repeat…Nothing wrong with that. But there's something that happens when a kitchen and a bar decide to stay open — to influences, to seasons, to the person sitting down who didn't know what they wanted until it arrived. That's the space we occupy. Not the restaurant that's easy to explain. The eclectic one that's hard to forget.
That's the whole idea.
-Paul
