“I love jalapeno poppers, but that’s not what we serve,’’ says Tony Maws, chef-owner of Craigie on Main in Cambridge. The bar food “is still within the philosophy of the restaurant. It’s still coming from me. I can’t take a sharp turn.’’
There are economic as well as culinary reasons for restaurants to pay more attention to bar menus. Customers are looking to spend less when going out. Owners are looking to drive high-profit alcohol sales. Bar dining satisfies both parties.
“People are looking for lower-priced options,’’ says Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst for market research company the NPD Group. “They’re also looking for smaller portions.’’ Restaurant industry traffic has been negative for the past two years, she says, except in two areas: breakfast and snacks. According to NPD research, snacks account for 40 percent of industry growth over the past five years. In a new report, “The Future of Foodservice,’’ NPD predicts snacking at restaurants will grow by 9 percent over the next decade.
These combined forces mean that bar menus around town just keep getting better. When an exciting new restaurant opens, it’s likely to offer an equally exciting bar menu. When a restaurant gets a new chef, he or she is likely to revamp the food served in the bar as well as in the dining room. Sometimes the bar becomes as much of a draw as the restaurant itself.
Craigie on Main is one example. Its reputation is built on a French-inspired menu of dishes featuring the best ingredients the kitchen can get each day. The restaurant relocated from Craigie Street to Main Street in 2008; the larger new space meant room for a bar. Now Craigie is known for its burger as well as its seasonal 10-course tasting menus. “At 5:20, there’s a line outside the door and everyone rushes into the bar,’’ Maws says.
At $18, while not inexpensive, the burger is a more accessible pleasure. It’s an estimable one, a large patty of loosely packed local, grass-fed beef enriched with added fat. Bright pink at the center, served on a house-made bun, it’s topped with cheddar from Vermont’s Shelburne Farms and, if you wish, house-smoked bacon for $3 more.
