The front porch at the Front Porch isn’t a porch but a red concrete patio facing the hustle of 29th Street and furnished with a handful of rocking chairs. It’s a hard-edged setting softened by a touch of country—not a fried-green-tomato Hollywood pastoral but a fitting entrance to the restaurant, an atmospheric primer for what’s in store. Step across this porch and you walk into a cleverly packaged concept pulled together by a team. Co-owner Kevin Cline had a hand in the downtown supper club Bix. His partner, Josey White, and chef Sarah Kirnon hail from Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack, the Outer Mission hangout that functions as a Pasta Pomodoro for the tattooed set. Their new venture is built around the cuisine of Barbados—“soul food,” as my waiter put it, “before it reached the American South.”

Transporting yourself to the southern hemisphere takes imagination when you’re sitting in a fog belt in the southern Mission. But the proprietors ask you to travel only partway. This is sultry island living viewed through the lens of the urban ironist: the window sills (sans windows) for showcasing condiments at the table; the white plantation shutters decorating the walls; the booths fashioned from van seats, seatbelts still intact.

An underground bar once occupied the space, and the pressed-tin ceiling and black-and-red checked floor combined with the squint-to-read-this lighting creates something of a clubby, speakeasy vibe. It’s a fun place to linger, and the menu complements the casual mood. Printed in a typewriter font, it’s laden with comforting, down-home dishes—fried chicken, fish-and-chips, black-eyed peas, and collard greens—which make you think that eating in Barbados might not be so different from eating in, say, Birmingham.

Having never spent time in Barbados (the chef’s grandmother is from there), I can’t speak fairly to the street cred of the cooking. But I also can’t imagine that an entire island nation would be partial to the blandness that permeates so much of what you get. Fish-and-chips, though fresh, carries no kick in its crunchy coating or in the “Creole” tartar sauce served with it. Fried chicken, covered in a milquetoast cornmeal batter, is similarly subdued, more a vehicle for fat than flavor. And although red bean and coconut soup cries out for the tongue-lashing fire of chilies, it receives only a gentle warming from a dollop of “spicy” avocado mash.

Every now and then, dishes are injected with a jolt of life. Seviche, with a crisp scattering of cucumbers and red onions, delivers an appropriate citrus pucker, as does a salad of cucumber, avocado, and watermelon radish splashed in a light bath of salt and lime. But more often, when you’re looking for a taste of adventure, the restaurant takes you on a walk on the mild side. If this clashes with your image of Caribbean cooking, be advised: at the Front Porch, it’s not the
heat, it’s the timidity.

The question is how much you care.

The Front Porch has been crafted as a neighborhood restaurant, and its eardrum-rattling ambience feels customized to a certain clientele. Scenesters, hipsters—I could cast around for the right cliché. Instead, I’ll place their birth some time around the U.S. invasion of Grenada. If they’re no longer living with their parents, they still haven’t been adults long enough to acquire a complete arsenal of cooking supplies.

Those of that generation (or of that youthful mindset in which atmosphere takes precedent over eating and few demands are made on the pace of service) will surely find a lure in the restaurant’s liveliness and low prices. They’ll be less inclined to fret when the fried chicken arrives stubbornly underseasoned or when the chicken-liver-and-rum pâté is delivered undesirably damp, a quality that’s particularly tough to take with the loose mango chutney that’s spooned on the side.

For the rest of us, there are still things to delight in: the vibrant buzz and chatter of the bar scene; the light, simple snacks like pickled eggs and okra; and the list of playful drinks that includes the Hangover Cure of ginger beer and bitters and the Red Eye: a glass of tomato juice with a Budweiser tall boy, it’s a Bloody Mary for Britney Spears. There are even a few entrées that might stir some excitement, like Dungeness crab with white corn grits, and a basic burger, a non-Barbadian dish that happened to be the best dish I tried.

Come dessert, yellow cake with chocolate frosting will send you reminiscing about the cake you had at your nephew’s birthday party. And perfumey apple-nutmeg crisp, served with a scoop of Mitchell’s vanilla ice cream, will likely send you scurrying to Mitchell’s just down the street.

On your way out, you can stand on the “porch” and soak up your surroundings. You won’t forget you’re hanging on the edge of the Mission, which is fine. It just might be nice if the food took you somewhere slightly farther away. 

The Front Porch 65A 29th St. (at San Jose Ave.), S.F., 415-695-7800. Dinner Only. Reservations Recommended. $$. *½