A brand-new life for 600 Ward Parkway
Until the 1980s, there was a gas station at 600 Ward Parkway. It was torn down in the mid-’80s to build the domed structure that opened as the Parkway 600 restaurant in 1987. In the late 1990s, the building underwent renovations and reopened as the Pacific Rim-themed restaurant Japengo. In 2001, the restaurant was once again given a new concept as Baja 600. It finally closed — with a reputation for mediocre food and lousy service — a year ago.
The exterior walls and the dome are still standing at 600 Ward Parkway, but the building is undergoing a drastic renovation: The interior of the ground level has been completely gutted, and the once-popular outdoor patio has been ripped out in order to take the surface down 18 inches, according to managing partner Alan Gaylin. “The only thing we’re keeping are the planter boxes,” he says, “and we’re sandblasting them out.”
Gaylin says he and his business partners knew that it would take a major construction job to turn the domed building into the new restaurant they have planned for the space: Gram & Dun, a British-inspired gastropub that Bread & Butter Concepts (which opened the BRGR restaurant last year) hopes to have up and running by Thanksgiving.
