Bar Dining

I started one post this afternoon that was simply a cry-fest about the unending delays and finger-pointing we have been enduring so often the last week or two of trying (desperately) to put a restaurant in the Radcliffe Mill - it is getting tiresome and it is (finally) getting to me. But whining is whining, so I put it in the draft column and opened a new tab in Firefox to check out what Frank Bruni has to say. He shares Blog space with other food writers now and then, and it was my pleasure to see a post about Bar Dining. Written by Pete Wells, it was posted last week, and while what he discusses does not describe exactly what we are planning for the BT, it is true that the trend of Bar Dining is what we hope to tap into. We have been exceedingly lucky to attract a couple of professionals to tend the bar (that is, if we can open in a timely fashion and not lose them) and we are planning a 'bar menu' to be served exclusively in the bar area - anything from a burger with fries to perhaps pot stickers or a Tavern Steak - that wouldn't be available in the main dining room. And of course the full DR menu will also be offered to those hungry bar patrons. As the comments in Mr. Wells' blog state, sometimes you want to eat at a table and face one another, sometimes you want the freedom of a bar stool. We had sort of planned this for the Bar at the Kennedyville Inn, but met with some resistance due to the fact, I think, that the bar there is really right in the dining room (not to mention that whole bar height/stool height thing there) so this time we are at least trying to keep the Bar in the bar and the Dining Room in the dining room. Even though they are essentially in the same room together, there aims to be a decidedly different "feel" to each space. We'll see how it goes (if it ever goes) (yes, I am a little dispirited today...you're lucky you're not reading the post I put on Draft). Anyway, I know one thing, that's where I'll be eating!