Play Pen

If success stinks, then Jim and Andrew Heckler reek. The brothers, whose Manhattan restaurant the Living Room stylishly capped the high-flying 80s, have re-emerged with a trio of ambitious ventures more suited to our value-driven decade.

Mayrose, a clean and simple emporium for "comfort" food, such as griddle cakes, pies, and meat loaf, is the most visible. "You can see anyone from Julia Roberts to Ric Ocasek here," says Jim, aged 30, who oversaw the design of the 90-seat hash house. "It's just a cool little place in the Flatiron District, not a celebrity hangout," he says.

Upstairs from the restaurant is their 3,300-square-foot photo studio, called the Holding Pen, which will soon include a huge rooftop deck with spectacular panoramic views. It's a megaspace perhaps meant to rival Industria, a downtown photofortress that's not far from the third part of the Heckler realm— Workhouse, a two-year-old theater in Tribeca with strong community ties. Andrew, 28, is the theater's resident producing director (and sometimes acts in the plays). "I believe in reaching out to the neighborhood," says the thespian Heckler, "the gasstation guy and the deli guy—not just theater people."

Though the brothers' projects seem haphazard, there is a mission to the madness. "Everything we do is about substance over hype, or substance over hip," Andrew explains. "That's the way to make things last."

ERIC ZICKLIN