Alison Barshak won't have to run two restaurants at once when she opens Alison two, the Fort Washington sibling of her Blue Bell bistro, in about a month.

She's timed a top-to-bottom renovation of Alison at Blue Bell when her new place in Fort Washington opens. While Blue Bell is closed for three months, its staff will handle the opening in Fort Washington. (It so happens that her Blue Bell lease was being renewed, and she negotiated a break in rent during the work.)

There's supposed to be minimal downtime between Blue Bell's shutdown and Fort Washington's opening. Barshak is vague on timing.

Among the new features at Alison at Blue Bell will be the acceptance of credit cards and online reservations set through OpenTable, and the menu will lean more toward Mediterranean.

Steaks stakes

By the end of the year, if projections are correct, there will be nearly 900 new seats available in high-end Center City steak houses. Add private dining, and the new capacity will be closer to 1,200. When you factor in the new Table 31 in the Comcast Center (260 seats) and Chima (300 seats) in the Kennedy House, that's a lot of white tablecloths and corkscrews and $90-a-head dinners - especially when you consider that the economy is soft and that the potential increase in business from the Convention Center expansion is three years away.

Steak house backers argue that in bad times, people still like to reward themselves with fancy dinners. And that each will be different, providing a luxurious experience unmatched in the region.

The first of the new steak houses, due in mid-October, is expected to be Union Trust in the former Kellmer Jewelers at 719 Chestnut St. It's independent, and backers include longtime steak house veterans Ed Doherty and Terry White, plus developer Joe Grasso.

Mid-November should see the debut of Del Frisco's Double Eagle in the lobby of the Grande (the former Packard Building) at 15th and Chestnut Streets. Del Frisco's, which spun off from Lone Star last year, has seven locations throughout the United States. Among backers is David Grasso, Joe Grasso's developer brother. Filmgoers may remember the main dining room, as it was the train station in the M. Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable. The dominant element in the room will be a two-story, walk-in glass wine tower, around a first-floor bar. There will be a more private bar on the mezzanine level, which will be expanded to accommodate more tables. The vault in the basement, where the safe-deposit boxes were, will accommodate 80 to 90 people. General manager Shang Skipper says Del Frisco's is big on charity work, and is searching for a partner for special events.

Late fall or early winter is the target of Butcher & Singer, Stephen Starr's reconfiguration of Striped Bass at 15th and Walnut Streets into a '40s-style supper club.

Briefly noted

The Coffee Bar, a morning-to-night cafe, bar and dessertery, opens tomorrow in the lobby space formerly occupied by Capriccio at the Radisson Plaza-Warwick. The space had been occupied for 14 years by Capriccio, which is locating at 16th and the Parkway in September.

Francis Trzeciak of Chester County's Birchrunville Store Cafe has quit his short-lived executive chef's job at the luxe Inn at St. Peter's, near French Creek State Park. "I am happy where I am," Trzeciak said. "It was too much for me."

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Contact columnist Michael Klein at 215-854-5514 or mklein@phillynews.com. See his recent work at http://go.philly.com/michaelklein.