For many a hardworking city-dweller, late nights and busy schedules often mean an endless parade of takeout boxes and pizza cartons. We dream of a cozy, affordable neighborhood haunt that would serve hearty, homey fare as we hit speed dial to order yet another night’s Pad Thai.

Hoping to fill the void is Jack’s Restaurant and Bar, the kind of easygoing watering hole where you’re just as likely to enjoy a sophisticated ravioli with morel mushrooms as a hefty burger and fries. It’s the latest addition to the stretch of 17th Street in Dupont Circle that has been steadily upgrading the quality of its restaurants, beginning with the opening of the wildly inventive Komi and continuing with additions like the quietly luxe Hank’s Oyster Bar.

The space Jack’s occupies might not appear particularly auspicious. It was the longtime home of Peppers, an unremarkable purveyor of cheap, quasi-Mexican fare, which was briefly replaced by Le Pigalle, a French spot whose food was widely panned.

But Jack’s chef and co-owner Herbert Kershbaumer, a native of Switzerland and former proprietor of La Bernoise in the Palisades neighborhood, is aiming to break the location’s apparent bad-luck spell with a winning mix of European bistro fare, reasonable prices, and charm.

Jack’s embraces the best elements of both highbrow boîtes and neighborhood dives. Here, you can sample a mellow goat cheese with real pedigree: It’s imported from a Pennsylvania cheese-maker who’s a friend of the chef. But you can also enjoy that cherished pub tradition, half-price burger night (it’s on Wednesdays at Jack’s).

Kershbaumer is mindful of the line he walks between high and low cuisine. Instead of a headier “charcuterie” offering, there’s the more down-to-earth “Jack’s deli plate,” a pan-European sampling that might include a pleasantly chewy prosciutto and a robust blunderfleisch, a dried beef from Switzerland.

But sometimes, the restaurant’s split personality comes across as confusion. The menu itself, which includes odd descriptors for some dishes, gives definitions for ingredients such as Pernod and St. Louis ribs, but assumes the same diners care to know that the duck is from Maple Leaf Farms and the mustard is from the Pommery region of France.

But there’s enough that’s good on and off the plates to forgive the momentary confusion. An appetizer of shrimp, which all too frequently emerges from the kitchen as rubbery pucks, is here perfectly cooked in a straightforward bath of garlic, shallots, white wine and butter. Salads, too, make satisfying starters, or, given their generous portions, are light meals in themselves. A BLT salad, in particular, combines slivers of sweetly smoky bacon with crisp greens and tomatoes, to good effect.

The burgers are more than a nod to affordable eats; they are worthy of their spot on the menu, with toppings like sharp gorgonzola cheese and applewood bacon to elevate them from their plebian reputation. Thin, crispy fries are the perfect accompaniment.

A ravioli dish, nicely al dente pockets of house-made filling, changes daily. On a recent visit, the ravioli were dressed with woodsy morel and chanterelle mushrooms in a luxurious cream sauce. Crab cakes, though, struck a rare off-note, their texture leaden with filler. Dishes such as a braised lamb shank and a crisp-skinned duck confit feel a little dressier.

French standbys make up most of the short-but-sweet dessert list. The apple tart was a favorite (a waiter’s enthusiastic pitch proved true), with delicate slices of fruit topping a flaky pastry crisp. The desserts are a metaphor for the restaurant as a whole: Maybe it isn’t the lightest, most elegant chocolate mousse or crème brulée you’ve ever had, but it is honest stuff.

The amiable service befits the restaurant’s neighborhood-hangout vibe. “Ah, don’t worry about it!” an affable bartender waves my party away when we try to pay for a pre-dinner club soda one of us has ordered while waiting to be seated. Waiters are quick with personal endorsements of dishes, and their advice is usually dead-on.

Another example of Jack’s high-low mix: The three beers on tap included both blue-collar Bud Light and Stella Artois, a favorite of many a beer snob. The Eurocentric wine list, too, is full of affordable options that encourage ordering another glass to linger over, with $5 options in all categories.

Kershbaumer made mostly cosmetic changes to the former Le Pigalle interior meant to make it homier, adding a long stretch of bar for solo diners and happy-hour groups and a huge projection-image TV. Warm apricot walls and bigger tables cozy up the high-ceilinged space.

Although Kershbaumer named the restaurant after a German Shepherd owned by one of his buddies, it also evokes Jack Daniels, the whiskey that stars in many of the restaurant’s cocktails (a portion of which get donated to the nearby Whitman-Walker clinic).

Little gestures like that show Kershbaumer is doing his best to make nice with his new neighbors and patrons. But Jack’s solid fare, comfortable digs, and genial attitude is already likely to win them over.

Jack’s Restaurant and Bar is located at 1527 17th St. N.W. (202) 332-6767