After all, former longtime owner Johnny Imbrenda was a small-time boxer. And from all accounts, this '60s time capsule was your typical aging Fishtown tavern, serving 50-cent Buds and jug pours of King's port from early morning till late at night, when its stalwarts stumbled across Frankford Avenue seeking sustenance at the New Acropolis coffee shop.

Who knew Johnny Brenda's would signal the dawn of a new day in Fishtown? It took Standard Tap owners William Reed and Paul Kimport - like collectors sifting through a vintage clothing store - to recognize the weathered brick building as the gem it is.

They have turned this sharply angled corner at Frankford and Girard into a linchpin where an influx of new residents, fueled by craft beers on draft, a blackboard menu of tasty Mediterranean tapas and sandwiches, and a retro jukebox stocked with '80s tunes from the likes of Devo and Judas Priest, generates the energy of a real community.

No wonder a friend of mine who lives in Fishtown senses unease among his old-time blue-collar neighbors: "They say, 'Johnny Brenda's is not for us,' " he reports.

The place still looks remarkably like it has for generations, from the white sign dangling out front to the red-and-white-striped linoleum floor and the glass-block and wood-paneled walls.

But the similarities end there. Beneath the knit caps, tattoos and grungy sideburns of this artsy, hipster crowd (a couple of customers even bring along their good-natured hounds, Cecil and Gus) is the unmistakable first wave of gentrification settling into the fringes just north of pricier Northern Liberties.

Reed and Kimport set the pace of cool in that burgeoning neighborhood, too, with their handsomely bohemian Standard Tap. Add the extra dose of dive bar at Johnny Brenda's (a funky smidge of South Street's Bob & Barbara's, perhaps?), and they seem well on their way to doing the same for Fishtown.

Johnny Brenda's has many of the same excellent beers that make Standard Tap a showcase for local brewers, including Victory's bracingly bitter Hop Wallop; crisp, floral Stoudt's American Pale Ale; Weyerbacher's dark, nutty Winter Ale; and hand-pumped (though flat when I tried it) Yard's Extra Special Ale.

But it's much less of a sit-down restaurant than Standard Tap. Almost all its 35 seats line the shepherd's crook of a counter that runs the length of the bar. And Kimport has smartly crafted a limited but intriguing small-plate menu that works well with this format - dishes that chef Brian Fidiam turns out with relative ease and speed from the open stainless-steel kitchen behind the bar.

On its better days, the grilled octopus easily steals the crown from Dmitri's as the city's best. The char-blistered white tubes are amazingly tender in a lemony vinaigrette with olive oil, onions and salty olives (though they sometimes need an extra squeeze of lemon to wake them up).

No such problem with the big fried shrimp, which are wrapped in coils of kadaifi (a shredded Middle Eastern pastry) and come with a mayonnaise dip that prickles with the heat of North African harissa paste. (More beer, please!)

Cubes of succulent grilled mako shark nestle in warm pita sauced with roasted red pepper romesco. Homemade hummus and babaghanoush are rife with garlic and cumin.

The mushroom cigars - crisp fried pastry tubes bursting with meaty chunks of mushroom and served with a rich Parmesan Mornay dipping sauce - are addictive. And the crunchy haystacks of matchstick fries are as good as bar-munching gets.

The kitchen, though, seems in a constant state of flux. During my final visit, the cigars were a little greasy and the sauce had congealed nearly solid. The lentil soup that was so hearty at my first meal was watery the next. The mushroom barley soup left me wheezing from too much black pepper.

The surprisingly elegant cream-filled profiteroles that marked my first lunch were never to be seen again, replaced by an interesting, but less inspired, cookie plate.

The mako kabob has swapped its romesco for a citrusy yogurt sauce. And the excellent eggplant Parmesan sandwich, which I enjoyed twice on a puffy focaccia roll that highlighted the delicacy of the eggplant's crunch and the fresh tang of its marinara, now sported the heartier crust of a baguette.

The focaccia, thankfully, remains the natural choice for the seductively oozy grilled Brie sandwich. But while the grilled pork medallion and flank steak sandwiches were perfectly fine, they were meek stand-ins for the stellar burger and pulled pork sandwich that help make Standard Tap the city's benchmark for great bar food.

Kimport told me a few logistical reasons he's not serving burgers here. But I also suspect a lingering determination to not copy too much from his first success at the Tap, which is only blocks away.

It's an admirable exercise, but such worries seem moot. Reed and Kimport have already managed to create in Johnny Brenda's a rarity: a sequel with its own identity that breathes the spirit of a neighborhood finding new life.