52nd City

Dining out for Life: Three Stops

Hit three stops in The Grove on Tuesday night, part of Dining out for Life's fall edition.

The Atomic Cowboy was the first and I've never enjoyed the Cowboy more. Thought the place had been reserved for nearly two weeks - the 100% donation to Dining was surely the cause of that - Superstar Server David slotted us with a two-top near the door, no mean feat. It was obvious the fully-staffed room was cranking, with a capacity crowd, but even so, the order came up quickly and the new veg addition to the menu, a veggie burger, was a total winner, much better than the usual warmed-up-Morningstar-on-a-bun that passes for one through the rest of town. The mood was upbeat, the place was humming, the club had a big-time, big-town feel that you don't normally see on a Tuesday night in November. Excellent stuff.

From there, it was a quick stop at Novak's, which I wasn't "feeling," as the kids say. Maybe it's because I'm hearing that the club's traditional, lesbian fanbase isn't enjoying the incursion of the new crowd that's come with the move to The Grove. True? False? I'd like to know. Anyway, it was a full room and there was nothing wrong, per se, just quite grab the vibe of the place.

Lastly, a trip to the new Newstead Tower Public House, found at Newstead and Manchester. Four thoughts here. One: what will the place be finally known as? The Public House? The Newstead? The Newstead Tower? Too many words! Let's figure this out. Two: Eventually the walk between, say, Talmadge and Newstead won't scare anytime, but some shrinking flowers will still worry about the walk today, as lots of empty storefronts and a few interesting, other pedestrians will flip out the non-urban types. I predict a few two-block drives for the next li'l while. Three: This is a cool room! Neat bar design, with a segmented mirror behind the bar and an overall "classic" pub feel. It's a loud room; lots of hard surfaces. Didn't try the food, but plenty of folks in the room were dining, in addition to drinking. Nice space, overall; very "usable" space, if you will. Four: soccer on the TV! Wanna be a European pub. Play soccer. Leave it on. Some of us will find more often because of that.