Pop Sparkling Bar & Restaurant, Dave Bailey’s newest, revealed in the middle of dinner service at L’Acadiane

Tonight, restaurateur Dave Bailey did something we’ve never seen (nor heard) anyone do: He reconcepted a restaurant right in the middle of dinner service.

A roomful of invited guests knew they were going to witness something special—possibly a menu change, a final meal, a future Bailey concept—after receiving a cryptic email earlier. But no other details were disseminated. Even the location, L’Acadiane (1915 Park), wasn't revealed until this morning.

On arrival, guests were seated, and the details slowly unfolded. In the first of a three-part explanation, Bailey detailed the genesis of his first restaurant, Baileys’ Chocolate Bar, in the Lafayette Square space. Just over a year ago, he’d opened the cozy, Cajun-themed L’Acadiane in the same footprint and moved Baileys' Chocolate Bar upstairs. (The concept made sense—we called it the "Bailey double” at the time. Plus, he and his wife, Kara, had fond memories of a similar restaurant that spanned both downstairs and upstairs.)

This evening, as guests sipped hurricanes and sampled dishes from L’Acadiane’s menu, Bailey recalled how he started in the business and his vision: to assemble different concepts and environments, rather than repeating a concept over and over. He wanted to create places that were all-inclusive, where staffers were free to be themselves, where the food was high-quality and local.

And indeed, to date, Baileys' restaurants span a range of unique concepts: Baileys' Chocolate Bar offers decadent desserts and martinis, Rooster serves sweet and savory crepes and breakfast fare, Small Batch specializes in vegetarian fare and whiskey, Baileys' Range serves up made-from-scratch burgers and fries, Bridge offers craft beer and charcuterie, Hugo’s Pizzeria bakes Roman-style pies in a gas-fired deck oven, and L’Acadiane offers a taste of New Orleans. And that's not to mention the restaurateur’s catering company and venues, Slate and Willow.

This evening, Bailey's repertoire expanded with a new concept, as inspired as any of its predecessors.

As guests dined, the magic began. Plates were cleared, tables were reset (including new flowers and wine glasses), the music changed, and iced wine buckets appeared. The L’Acadiane vinyl window graphic was scraped off, and the staff appeared in new uniforms to pour champagne. The existing curtains were removed, a wallpaper with pop was revealed, and wall art was taken down and replaced with pieces evoking bubbles, big and small.

As heads whirled, Bailey continued the evening’s story. He explained that, unbeknownst to some, L’Acadiane was launched in conjunction with a TV reality show pilot that never aired and that the process had been different than past Bailey restaurant launches.

“Every other restaurant we’ve done has been a completed thought. This one wasn’t,” he told SLM, confessing to a case of reverse engineering. “We were told what we can’t do versus what we should do, and ultimately it was not what the building was meant to be, not what my heart had in mind.”

He then told a story that conveyed what his heart did have in mind. He’d originally met his wife, Kara, while working at Sasha’s on DeMun. They had discovered many things in common, bubbles being one of them. (“If we were going to share a beverage, it was going to be champagne,” he told SLM.) Restaurant-industry people have many concepts in their heads, and Bailey was no different: It was back then that he’d added “a sparkling bar” to his mental list.

It would be a place to have a first date or a 500^th. A place to pair bubbles with food (or just more bubbles). A place where bubbles are a propos on a Thursday, not just on a special Thursday. (After all, the palate-cleansing properties make the bubbles the universal food-pairing wine.) “We want to have fun, and bubbles are fun,” Bailey said. “This is the restaurant I wanted to open to spend time with Kara.”

And with that, caviar, popcorn, and steak tartare—the first of four more sampler courses—was placed on tables, and Bailey welcomed guests to…POP Sparkling Bar & Restaurant, a restaurant predicated around memories of the joy of falling in love.

It’s pretty hard not to clink a few glasses to that.

Although Bailey would like to see a bottle of bubbly on every table, POP won’t be a sparkling wine-only bar. The bubbles concept will stretch to “all things sparkling,” including sparkling cider, and keg- and bottle-conditioned beer. Full bar service and a scatter of still wines will be available as well.

Beginning tomorrow, February 1, POP will be open for dinner service Wednesday through Sunday nights.