I had to be very clear that I was offering not only free food, but free beer, before he agreed to come. It's not the sort of mistake you'd make twice. The dive bar we know and love is still there, pennants and Keno and all. It is a total showpiece of downscale chic. The open kitchen is framed with wiggly red neon suggesting fire.
Every tabletop is a lacquered street map of a Southern city.
There's a wood stove holding a TV that runs a video loop of burning logs. The barstools are built from tractor seats . It also brought aboard a really ambitious chef, Brian Hill, who previously has worked in Hawaii and New Orleans, as well as in two branches of the Todd English pizzeria Figs. They've built a wide-ranging and impressive New Southern restaurant with culinary nods to the Caribbean, Louisiana, and dear old New England. Most people seem to be treating it as a barbecue joint, but the dishes that really stayed with me weren't barbecue at all.