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Gastropubs pour out approachable, yet selective drinks

Gastropubs pour out approachable, yet selective drinks

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

The term was coined in the early 1990s by London operators who took the radical step of serving chef-caliber food in a pub, hence the “gastro” prefix, short for gastronomy. “They realized you can have good, approachable food and wines and beers that are hand selected but not overly expensive,” said Jacques Bezuidenhout, master mixologist for San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, which has a new “gastro-lounge” in Chicago called Sable Kitchen & Bar.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

As a concept, gastropubs look like they will have legs, said hospitality consultant Andrew Freeman: “They are casual, they are comfortable, they have the kind of food we like — not necessarily comfort food, but quality, shareable items that go great with beer and wine.”Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

SideDoor, Lawry’s Restaurants’ six month-old gastropub in Corona del Mar, Calif., is attracting a lively younger crowd with items like prime rib chili, charcuterie plates and salmon gravlax, as well as 15 beers on tap and a well-chosen wine list. It’s actually a restaurant within a restaurant, having taken over about a quarter of the space of Five Crowns, a fine dining concept Lawry’s has run since 1965. It did the conversion last year hoping to revitalize the business. Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

“We have been busier than anticipated and we’re having all the good problems, like having to staff up,” said Richard R. Frank, Lawry’s president and CEO. The company is “just floored” by SideDoor’s 45-55 food-beverage ratio, Frank said. “We’ve never seen it before. Our restaurants have always done 70 or 75 percent food, 25 or 30 percent beverage.”Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Wine is the biggest seller, accounting for about 44 percent of sales, followed by liquor and beer at 28 percent and 26 percent respectively. “Our beer sales in that restaurant have grown tenfold, just because we are bringing in a new crowd and doing a whole new thing,” Frank said.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Lawry’s is considering converting part of Tam O’Shanter, the Scottish-inspired fine dining restaurant it has run in Los Angeles since 1922, into a gastropub as well, Frank added.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

“Crazy” ingredients shake up the offeringsCombining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

For Sable, dubbed a gastro-lounge for its stylish décor and forward-thinking beverage programs, Bezuidenhout and head bartender Mike Ryan devised creative cocktails like Yoino Buta Drunken Pig ($14), which combines Japanese whisky, bacon bitters, lemon and bacon-brown sugar syrup, and Blackfriars Pint ($12), an unusual potion of gin, cardamom-spiced stout and sherry shaken with bitters and egg white.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

“We have some drinks that appeal to people who like obscurities and crazy ingredients, but if someone wants a Cosmopolitan or a Lemon Drop, we’ll make it too, but to our standards,” Bezuidenhout said.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Going nativeCombining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

The brand-new Taste Gastropub in Delray Beach, Fla., sports 30 microbrews in bottles, a 40-selection wine list with 10 pours by the glass and a slate of signature cocktails, not to mention creations like Duck Confit Pot Pie by consulting chef Allen Susser.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

“We emphasize fine eating and great drinking,” Susser said.Microbrews, from here in Florida and across the country and the world, are definitely part of that.” Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Also with a focus on native products is two week-old Republic Gastropub in Oklahoma City, Okla. About two-thirds of its 100 tap beers are American craft brews, said Keith Paul, president of A Good Egg Dining Group based there, with seven restaurants. It also has 250 varied bottled beers. Even its popular Scotch Egg, a hard-cooked egg wrapped in sausage and deep-fried, has a home-state spin — it’s dredged in flour a la chicken fried steak.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Beer accounted for almost half of Republic’s bar sales in its first two weeks, Paul said. He estimated that the food-beverage ratio would be 60-40, about twice as high in beverage as Good Egg’s other restaurants.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Ninety bottles of beer on the wall…Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

The Liberty, Charlotte, N.C.’s first gastropub, has a good local following after six months, said co-owner Matthew Pera. It plies a niche between casual dining and fine dining with a check average of $26. At the bar are 20 beers on tap, 90 bottled beers and 30 wines by the glass.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

The gastropub is the first ownership venture for Pera and his partner, chef Tom Condron, both local fine-dining veterans.Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

“It’s telling that neither of us wanted to do fine dining” for this partnership, Pera said. “We think this concept is where it’s at.”Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

Combining the comfort and beverage selection of a bar with the good cooking of a chef’s hand, gastropubs are popping up around the country. They appeal to careful spenders with a yen for dining as well as operators who welcome the full seats and high beverage sales they can bring.

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