New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
I've likely said this before, but it bears repeating.
When the pandemic's lock-down doo-doo hit the fan blades, many in the local food and drink business were either catatonic (and understandably so; my empathy for them abounds), or, bizarrely, eager to dismiss hundreds of years of scientific achievement at the drop of a narcissistic and self-serving cap (purely inexcusable, then as now).
That's when the LEE Initiative made the biggest pivot of all and organized in a remarkably short time to help people who were in need.
What a concept.
Joe Phillips followed suit at Pints&union. He put people before profit and ran toward the fire. He converted the business into The Lee Initiative's relief outpost in SoIN. He ran himself ragged during the "business as usual" down time. He wasn't coming in every day and asking whether he was getting the credit and publicity. He did what was right, when it was needed.
Now Joe is doing it again, in conjunction with Steven Cavanaugh, our new general manager. Pints&union has safety protocols and socially-distanced indoor occupancy. We are enforcing safety, and our patrons get it. They know it's better to err on the side of caution during a public health emergency than to be the agent of dysfunction. We know better than to relax, but so far, it's going well.
Speaking personally, it is a joy to be an employee in an atmosphere like this, one of integrity and respect.
Here's what Joe had to say about it in a recent Edible Kentucky & Southern Indiana magazine article.
When the COVID-19 quarantine shut down local restaurants in March, we were devastated and silent. We all knew it was coming, but to know it’s knocking at your door is a very different reality than watching others face it on social media or television. We were shell-shocked for two days—then realized we needed to get back to work, somehow.
Knowing our perishable food would go bad, we donated it to our workers who were suddenly out of work. We needed a sense of purpose; we needed to give back to the workers who have been providing hospitality to our communities every day for years.
Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek, founders of the LEE Initiative, gave us that opportunity with the Restaurant Workers Relief Program. Thanks to a donation from Maker’s Mark Distillery, we gathered essential household items and served hot meals to feed laid off restaurant workers and their families every day. There are no words to fully describe what it felt like to experience the gratitude of the many service workers who received support and love during this scary time. With additional donations, we joined forces with 610 Magnolia, Lee’s flagship Louisville restaurant, to serve Louisville industry workers while still keeping tabs on the people we served in New Albany, Indiana. The streets were empty but our hearts were full, serving over 200 people per week. The program expanded to 18 other cities in the U.S., providing over 275,000 meals.
Moving forward, we are working with the LEE Initiative’s Restaurant Reboot Relief Program, a $1 million commitment to purchase produce from local farmers for restaurants to create more sustainable food supply chains. Restaurants that have hosted restaurant-worker relief centers will receive the food and help select other local restaurants to participate.
This remains a trying time for all of us. I have witnessed firsthand amazing beauty from great loss. I have seen open doors and hearts, open minds and people united for a greater sense of purpose. We look forward to enduring this time, coming out stronger together.
Be well,
Joe Phillips, Owner Pints & Union Restaurant
114 East Market St.
New Albany, IN 47150
812.913.4647
Learn more about The LEE Initiative Restaurant Relief Program, Restaurant Reboot Relief Program, McAtee Community Kitchen, Restaurant Regrow Program and Women Chefs Program.
I'm sharing column space this week with sentences written by two others, so let's get started.
Pints&union is coming back, although to be specific, we never really went away. Owner Joe Phillips explains this in the current issue of Edible Kentucky & Southern Indiana.
When the COVID-19 quarantine shut down local restaurants in March, we were devastated and silent. We all knew it was coming, but to know it’s knocking at your door is a very different reality than watching others face it on social media or television. We were shell-shocked for two days—then realized we needed to get back to work, somehow.
Knowing our perishable food would go bad, we donated it to our workers who were suddenly out of work. We needed a sense of purpose; we needed to give back to the workers who have been providing hospitality to our communities every day for years.
Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek, founders of the LEE Initiative, gave us that opportunity with the Restaurant Workers Relief Program. Thanks to a donation from Maker’s Mark Distillery, we gathered essential household items and served hot meals to feed laid off restaurant workers and their families every day. There are no words to fully describe what it felt like to experience the gratitude of the many service workers who received support and love during this scary time.
With additional donations, we joined forces with 610 Magnolia, Lee’s flagship Louisville restaurant, to serve Louisville industry workers while still keeping tabs on the people we served in New Albany, Indiana. The streets were empty but our hearts were full, serving over 200 people per week. The program expanded to 18 other cities in the U.S., providing over 275,000 meals.
Moving forward, we are working with the LEE Initiative’s Restaurant Reboot Relief Program, a $1 million commitment to purchase produce from local farmers for restaurants to create more sustainable food supply chains. Restaurants that have hosted restaurant-worker relief centers will receive the food and help select other local restaurants to participate.
This remains a trying time for all of us. I have witnessed firsthand amazing beauty from great loss. I have seen open doors and hearts, open minds and people united for a greater sense of purpose. We look forward to enduring this time, coming out stronger together.
Joe also threw himself into helping others in West Louisville when the Black Lives Matter protests began, although this is another story for a different time.
You should know that I’m proud to be working for a man who hasn't once denied science during a pandemic, complained about financial misfortune, dismissed the importance of civil rights for fear of alienating antebellum mouth-breathers, or minimized the all-purpose societal challenges we're facing at this juncture.
As I've said before, Joe just lowers his head and runs in the direction of the fire. It’s too bad not every downtown dining and drinking establishment's owner can say the same … but alas, I digress.
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Our new general manager at Pints&union is Steven Cavanaugh, a resident of New Albany who recently concluded a long, productive stint running the Garage Bar in NuLu.
Steven wrote this outline of what we’ll be doing for the safety of our customers and ourselves when the doors reopen to the public on Saturday.
PINTS & UNION REOPENING OUTLINE
Pints & union will be reopening to the public on Saturday, July 11th at 5:00 p.m.
While the charity work we’ve been able to accomplish in the time our doors have been closed has been some of the most rewarding and transformative experiences of our lives, we could not be more excited to welcome our guests back into the Public House you’ve come to know and love in our nearly two years of operation.
This being said, there are a few new procedures to be aware of that we’re implementing to ensure the highest level of safety for our guests and for our staff as possible.
For starters, masks will be REQUIRED to enter the building, to order at the bar, and to move about the pub. Essentially anytime you’ll be away from your table, we’ll require a mask to be worn.
Being a public house, we and all who enter have a duty to do our part in helping keep the public safe. We’ll be doing a temperature screen and taking information from one person in each party for contract tracing purposes. We’ll be self-imposing some capacity restrictions that go a bit further than the state currently allows by properly distancing all tables and bar stools, as well as prohibiting any standing-room-only areas.
Our neighbors at The Root have been kind enough to let us use their patio for dinner service from 5 to 10 PM on the weekends as an extension of our small outdoor seating area to help combat the capacity issue.
All tables will have a “drop zone” where fresh food will be placed by our staff and dirty dishes can be placed by guests for our team to pick up. We’ll have bottles of sanitizer provided by Starlight Distillery at each table for guests to use while they’re here, and are taking several other behind-the-scenes precautions such as air purifiers, ionizers in our AC unit, and new ceiling fans to constantly clean and circulate fresh air.
The whole team is beyond exciting to get our doors open again and see some familiar, albeit masked, faces! We’ve got a new dinner menu to show off as well as some incredible stories to tell behind some of our new products. We’ll see you all soon!
One point in the preceding merits emphasis: “Masks will be REQUIRED to enter the building, to order at the bar, and to move about the pub. Essentially anytime you’ll be away from your table, we’ll require a mask to be worn. Being a public house, we and all who enter have a duty to do our part in helping keep the public safe.”
Here's the best sign I've seen on the topic of masks, as produced by a Twitter friend; it's posted at Chicago Bagel Authority on Belmont Avenue in that toddlin' town.
Now to my column stanzas.
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I suspect that our American cultural preference to emphasize mind-numbling ignorance about the wider world doesn’t manage to produce rebellious Francophiles in quite the way we used to, but there was a time when they indeed roamed the earth.
And so let’s imagine an American man of late middle age, living in Louisville, or perhaps even Southern Indiana, who is enamored of all things French, especially the city of Paris, to him the exemplar of culture, modernity … and yes, all-purpose éclat.
The year is 1939, and the leaves have fallen. Owing to a modest inheritance and toothsome work habits, our Francophile friend -- can we refer to him as Frank? -- has long been able to indulge his love of France through visits every other year. It's not France alone for Frank, who has embraced the classic “grand tour” notion of examining Western European haunts. He usually spends time in non-Parisian locales during his trips.
Still, French terroir is Frank's first and most abiding love.
Frank is looking forward to the year 1940; April in Paris, after all. In fact, he has booked passage to France well in advance for the spring of 1940, sailing on the French Line (the Compagnie Générale Maritime) from New York City to Le Havre, where the trains depart for Paris.
However, storm clouds are gathering. War in Europe is all but certain. Transatlantic passages are starting to dwindle, yet Frank persists, because these trips to France are life itself to him, and the sustenance for coping with the philistinism in FDR’s increasingly socialist America, from which he simply must escape every now and then to a place where they do things correctly.
Unfortunately our Frank is a Republican.
Calendar pages turn, and as Frank’s holiday in France draws ever nearer, he finally gets cold feet. Friends, family and the American government conspire to issue unassailable warnings about the potentially dangerous situation across the pond. As a frequent traveler, Frank wangles a postponement with only the minimum in penalties. He’ll sail instead in 1941, after the inclement geopolitical weather blows over.
And so, on cue, the Germans invade France in the spring of 1940, quickly overwhelming the French and capturing Paris. World War II ensues, by any measure the most destructive war in human history.
It will be 1946 before Frank is able to return to Paris. In the interim, he lives his life correctly. Frank purchases war bonds, maintains a Victory Garden, volunteers for useful wartime homefront duties, reads the library's collection of French novels in translation at least twice each, and burns through multiple phonograph needles listening to the 1941 hit song that always brings his hankie out.
But then it's 1946, and Frank at long last sees Paris again, finding himself seated within the familiar confines of Harry’s New York Bar at 5 Rue Daunou – Sank Roo Doe Noo – with a Bloody Mary in one hand and a Havana in the other, daydreams of his heroes Ernest Hemingway, George Gershwin and Jack Dempsey swirling through the battered touring cap on his simply delighted, albeit far grayer head.
It doesn’t seem to Frank like it has been eight years. He's happy to be back, and the feeling is intensified by gratitude, because beating the damned evil Nazis proved to be a collective accomplishment far outweighing his own selfish desires. Hell, even that filthy communist Uncle Joe Stalin helped us out.
Moulin Rouge, here Frank comes.
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Returning from the realm of fiction to the present day, we’re experiencing a global pandemic, and Europe is closed to Americans because so many of my countrymen exist in a stuporous state of anti-scientific, fruit-loops-grade denial of medical reality, prattling endlessly about their "rights" while burying their heads in the alluvial mud at the slightest suggestion of responsibilities.
Yes, I won't be going to Europe any time soon, and it bothered me at first like it bothered Frank back in 1940, but the constructive way I propose to deal with it is to accept the nature of the threat and react sensibly to it, correctly even, such that a semblance of good might come about.
I'm wearing a facemask in public, practicing social (physical) distancing to the best of my ability, washing my hands often, practicing good hygiene overall, and being as much a part of the solution as I can possibly be, as opposed to being another brick in the wall of problematic narcissism.
At the present time, it is my earnest hope that in 2021 my aching feet again will be transported to European soil. As always, upon arrival, whether it’s next year or five more afterward, I’ll kiss the ground, sob tears of joy and thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for my good fortune to be able to enjoy a brief respite from other Americans.
Until then, whatever it takes. I’ll do my part to deal with COVID-19. You should consider doing yours, too, and those of you who are being proud, stupid and plainly anti-social about it -- sorry, not sorry, but you're making it worse for everyone.
Yurt dwellers in southwest Mongolia know I'm not a ribbon-cutting type of guy, but they also understand, just as I always have, that there is no "I" in the word "team."
If ever a crew deserved a Develop New Albany ribbon cutting, it is the guys and gals assembled by Joe Phillips at Pints&union. My own beery role at the pub, while important, is limited. These are the folks who make it tick, and Joe and family are the ones taking the risk.
From the perspective of downtown New Albany's independent businesses, the next three or four years will be critically important, over and above the usual day to day struggles of small operators. Making lemonade out of the forthcoming Sherman Minton Bridge repair disruption stands to be far easier when we're working together rather than separately.
Irrespective of the election outcome next month, our thoughts must be aimed toward Ben Franklin's timeless wisdom, apocryphal or not: "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
NEW ALBANY — A live music venue, a bank and office spaces are some of the new additions coming to Market Street in downtown New Albany through a new redevelopment project.
The Jimmy's Music Center location at the corner of Market Street and Pearl streets is in the process of some major changes. Developer Steve Resch, owner of Resch Construction, purchased the space in November, and he is building offices in the historic building, along with a concert venue and bar in the basement.
Jimmy's Music Center remains open in a smaller space in the same location at 123 E. Market St., and owner James Gaetano is planning to eventually relocate the music shop to another downtown space. A space at the corner of the building's first floor has already been leased to New Washington State Bank, and the other side (where Jimmy's Music Center is now operating) will be a retail space. The second and third floors will be used for office space.
Joe Phillips, owner of Pints & Union, plans to open a live music venue called Misery Loves Company, or the MLC Club, in the downstairs area. The idea of starting a live music venue has been floating around in his head for about five years, he said, and the concept for the upcoming business was inspired by Jimmy Can't Dance, a jazz bar located beneath Another Place Sandwich Shop in Louisville ...
Pints&union cleared its first hurdle on Friday evening. It was a very soft opening, with beers and drinks and nibbles.
The handles looked nice, although the learning curve was/is strenuous. There's an inevitable process of dialing in keg boxes, and making draft beer work right is like breaking a horse, with each system a bit different from the next. As attractive as these handles might appear, we're all in agreement that we should retrofit with something shorter, like basic black knobs. I'll be getting started on this in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
The upstairs, captured by Ed Needham. We need a name for this space. Steve Resch just might have been overheard suggesting "better times."
Ground floor, from the stairs.
Tasty red lentil hummus with naan bread. Joe and Aaron will be broadening the menu range once the kitchen hood installation is complete, hopefully Monday.
The scene earlier in the afternoon, with Joe, Calvin and Bryan. We didn't want to do a conventional invitation-only type of soft opening and resolved to unlock the doors and see what happened.
It happened, all right.
The grand opening is next Wednesday, August 1. Don't hold me to this, but I believe the opening time will be around 5 or 6 p.m., with the music at 8. There'll be primarily evening hours at first, with exceptions for Saturday and Sunday; closed on Monday. Once a routine is established, anything might happen.
In closing, my back hurts and the draft delivery system still needs work. The draft beers tasted great and were depleting fairly evenly. Staff was sharp and the overall mood jovial. Resch Construction's work exceeded expectations, as they've always somehow managed to do.
Congratulations to Joe, Regina, their kids and families; it's the start of something good, and the legacies begin now.
Pints&union will be opening for regular business hours next week. This much I know. Otherwise, please connect with the Facebook page to keep informed about details.
Now for another pub preview, courtesy of the local newspaper. As of about 2:00 p.m. today, all the draft lines should be up and running, and a big shout-out goes to Kenny Henson of Monarch Beverage/World Class Beer for his efforts in fine-tuning the keg boxes. Joe and the rest of the team have been putting in the hours. All that remains is to tie up 1,001 loose ends and unlock the door.
NEW ALBANY — Pints & Union is a United Kingdom-inspired pub that doesn’t have to slap you in your face to tell you that it is one.
Instead of Union Jacks plastered to the walls and the sounds of generic folk music being piped through the sound system, owner Joe Phillips has hung Victorian-esque paintings he found at auctions and opted for modern, British-inspired tunes.
The limited selection of nine beers on tap will feature European favorites (a Guinness stout, a Fuller’s London Pride and the Czechian Pilsner Urquell), but the food, served small plates-style, will be world-inspired with a bar bites twist: tikka masala wings and pickles coated in Lebanese spices.
The British Empire did once extend to almost every continent, after all, Phillips reminds ...
It is heartening to know that many of you are eager to have a beer at the pub. The Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission (ATC) permit waiting game has commenced, and at some point in the next few days, the license should emerge from escrow.
Pints&union is a progressively Old World public house in downtown New Albany, featuring small plates, classic cocktails and comfort beers, with counter service only.
Owner Joe Phillips' plan for Pints&union has continued to evolve since we first began brainstorming. There will be food, cocktails, wine and an old-school pub atmosphere. There won't be television. When I dropped by there yesterday, Joe had Blur and Liam Gallagher playing on the sound system, though not simultaneously.
Of course, even monks clinging to Tibetan mountainsides know that my personal contribution to Pints&union is the beer program, which is why I typically have less to say about the other aspects of the pub. Beer has been my life, and I'm thankful to Joe for the opportunity to reformat the better beer experience for another generation of pub-goers.
My primary mission with the beer program at Pints&union is to emphasize beer fundamentals, rediscover timeless beer virtues, and explore the many possibilities of beer -- albeit slowly and meticulously, not at warp speed.
golden (and red, and brown, and black) beer oldies
throwback beers
greatest beer hits of the 1300s through the 1900s (and a few others)
Hovering always in the background of my beer consciousness is a recognition that much of my professional career in beer and brewing has been devoted to assisting in the creation and furtherance of "good beer bar" templates in what now would be considered a contemporary sense.
I'm proud of this and I'll always love what we've achieved, but it must be conceded that in my rapidly approaching dotage (I'll be 58 years old in two weeks), contrarianism is king. When the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it's time for a correction.
Kaleidoscopes, tilt-a-whirls, merry-go-rounds, spinning hamster wheels, coin flips, the shuffling of decks, revolving doors, and pin-the-tail-on-the-rotating taps no longer enamor me. More power to the practitioners and their fans. I seek only to animate a slower-paced, thoughtful and more contemplative alternative.
At Pints&union, the beer list will provide an opportunity to think outside the current box by going back to the egg.
Subject to last minute changes, there'll be roughly 36 choices on the beer list when Pints&union opens. At least seven of these will be on draft, five permanent and two seasonal. It may be possible to sneak a sixth barrel into one of the keg boxes.
My beginning aim is to offer around 30 everyday bottles/cans; in terms of styles and sub-styles in a rough Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) approximation, I'd say there'll be at least 20 different styles represented and possibly as many as 25 or 26 (including drafts), depending on today's coin flip barometer for such distinctions.
The list of bottles and cans will be expanded as we grow, with an ultimate destination of 50. The Belgian ale component will be significant. When all is said, done and stocked, IPAs will number four, maybe five ... total. That's all. There'll be hops, but in context. The goal is a high-quality short list embracing history and stylistic diversity, with little turnover and a relatively fixed selection.
Seasonal and one-off beers won't be neglected. My theory is that when a thoughtful balance between daily undertow and occasional treats is restored, so will the very definition of "special." That's because when everything is special, nothing is.
To me, the best part of it to me is that within a few blocks of Pints&union in downtown New Albany are numerous other establishments with probably another 125 draft lines (or more), as well as countless bottles and cans. There's something for everyone, beer-related or otherwise.
Family-owned and -operated small indie businesses are responsible for every last bit of this growth, and it's a delightful culmination of sorts for all of us who spent time and money to fill the downtown doughnut hole.
Pints&union will be another of these establishments. It's a small building, and Joe has a big heart -- and, as the guy tending the beer, I understand the business must live within its means. There cannot possibly be an expansive beer selection like the one at the Public House, Holy Grale, Sergio's or HopCat.
Spatial reality lends itself to intelligent selection, and incorporating my beer and brewing experience, this is what I intend to achieve. I hope to be seeing you soon.
ON THE AVENUES: Thanks to Joe Phillips, there'll be pints, union and good times downtown.
A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.
I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.
-- Billie Holiday (Lady Sings the Blues, 1956)
Well, it’s about to get real. The theme from the television series Cheers will be playing constantly in my head for the remainder of July, and I intend to cherish every moment.
The precise timetable for the opening of Pints & Union remains in flux, because if a cookie-cutter franchise atrocity like Dunkin’ Donuts on Charlestown Road can tease local chain addicts for months on end, we’d obviously rather not emulate their weird delays – and small, independently-owned businesses are labors of love as well as agents of commerce.
As the Motown song informed us, "you can’t hurry love."
The advent will be soon. Very soon. Construction is almost finished, and the equipment’s in place. It’s a matter of finishing touches, permits and inventory.
Earlier in the week, I referenced both Pints & Union and Pints&union. Fortunately, the words are the same, if spaced differently; may St. Arnold of Soissons spare me yet another experience of running one joint with four, maybe five names. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
As such, perhaps you’ll enjoy three excerpts from the FAQ.
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What is Pints&union? Pints&union is a progressively Old World public house in downtown New Albany, featuring small plates, classic cocktails and comfort beers, with counter service only. Why is it spelled Pints&union? It’s Pints&union, one word. The ampersand represents the spirit of inclusivity. These three words have been wedded as one to represent the intention of the pub: share pints, share conversation, share a moment - experience union among your neighbor/friend/stranger no matter your ideals, politics, background, or social standing. We all have something to share with one another, and all it takes to bridge the divide is to have a willingness to put aside differences and see each other as fellow humans. After all: Memento mori. What does “Memento mori” mean? Memento mori is the ancient practice of reflection on mortality that goes back to Socrates. In early Buddhist texts, a prominent term is maraṇasati, which translates as “remember death.” Memento mori is a habit of mind in consideration of the vanity of earthly life, and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits.
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I’d like you to meet Joe Phillips.
Joe and I have spent considerably more than a year discussing the concept henceforth to be known as Pints&union. While I contributed to the theoretical vision and will be representing the pub’s beer on a daily basis, it needs to be understood that Joe’s the main man behind Pints&union.
I’m the rhythm guitarist, a supporting actor, or maybe just a guy who fervently wishes his friend and former employee to succeed in this entrepreneurial venture, and will do whatever is necessary to contribute to this end. I'm heavy into Pints&union -- I'm just not the big guy. That's more than fine with me.
Joe has worked in the food and drink business since he was 15 years old, washing dishes in a pizzeria somewhere. He's done it all, and helped open more restaurants and bars than I can fathom. He and his family are putting it all on the line with Pints&union, and they want to be in downtown New Albany for the long haul. Theirs is a pure commitment, and I admire it tremendously.
Many readers know me personally, some of them for long enough to remember the time so long ago when I had to be pushed from the wings into the limelight, kicking and screaming, eventually and rather unintentionally becoming the outspoken front man for a family business I married into, then divorced out of, but remained in a partnership with, right up until the past three years.
I wouldn’t trade the NABC experience for anything. The pub taught me how to speak, as opposed to only write. I came to enjoy being the carnival barker, and got fairly good at it, though probably not great; my strengths play more to the pub side, and less to outside beer sales.
Infamy's enough, and it’s all part of history now. At this juncture in my life, it’s an appealing prospect to play a contributing role toward helping Joe and his family achieve their indie dreams. Thanks, Joe. I’ve been away for a while, and I deeply appreciate the chance to come back.
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Joe isn’t the only independent small business operator setting up shop downtown.
Dragon King's Daughter is in the process of moving into its remodeled space at 129 W. Market. A block to the east, in the direction of Pints&union, Hitching Post recently reopened after a complete rebuild.
Another half block east, Longboard's Taco & Tiki (302 Pearl Street Suite C) is set to open any minute, and over on Main Street there's Double Barrel, a bourbon bar and lounge at 147 E. Main (formerly Match Cigar Bar), adjacent to Roadrunner Kitchen -- which opened earlier in 2018.
Gospel Bird and Bank Street Brewhouse remodeled in 2018, with Taco Steve moving into the latter. Quills Coffee slipped into the nearby alley in a brand new downsized space, and Floyd County Brewing Company expanded with a new seating area situated just down the hill from the main building, called The Grain Haus.
Quietly in April, Ian and Nikki Hall's Brand Hospitality Group purchased the Main Street space adjacent to their restaurant The Exchange, formerly occupied by Feast BBQ.
Mesa Kids Cooking School has begun on Main Street.
There'll be some sort of bar at the former Comfy Cow.
Hull & High Water won't be a year old until September.
For the first time in months, there isn't a new license up for consideration when the local ATC board meets in August.
Exhausted yet?
To be fair, there have been losers, too, as with vacancies at the former Dragon King locations and Destinations Booksellers. Overall, it's another million or two dollars added to the previous $60-odd million invested in downtown New Albany by independent small business operators during the past decade.
Now if we can just fill the vacant lots with living spaces, critical mass might be just around the corner, and yet do you remember how we once pointed to the unfairness of city-subsidized projects like Breakwater, because the subsidy (especially the sewer tap-in waiver) would also benefit whomever occupied the luxury apartment complex's commercial space, for which it sought an eatery or small bar?
The space remains empty. It turns out that at least one downtown dog won't hunt.
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I mentioned labors of love, and the structure that's about to house Pints&union has been all that and a box of chocolates for Resch Construction. It has been somewhere around 16 months since work began in earnest, and the air-conditioning was switched on today.
The great guys on Team Resch deserve a medal for their warm-weather efforts, but let's hope they can make do with cold beer.
The two-story, wood-frame commercial building at 114 E. Market Street originally dates to the 1880s and has been completely rebuilt to its 19th-century dimensions. As many of the surviving materials as possible have been reused during the course of the modernization.
For much of its existence, the building has been home to taverns and eateries. In 1890, when Nicholas Sauer’s saloon was operating here, there were 80 drinking emporiums in New Albany (population 21,000), most of them located downtown within walking distance of each other.
During Prohibition, John Fagan ran a restaurant here. After WWII, businesses at 114 E. Market included Crump’s Cafe, Daniels Restaurant, Love’s Cafe and most recently Good Times.
In 1946, cafe owners Harry and Russell Daniels were among the business owners snagged in a sweeping local police crackdown on illicit gambling just after Mayor Raymond L. Jaegers committed suicide by means of a 38.-caliber pistol while seated at his office desk.
Or was he murdered?
At any rate, the physical home of Pints&union is nearly finished. It's a beauty, and a new star among a series of Resch reclamation projects, including the future home of The Root next door where Ace Loan & Sporting Goods used to be.
I'm not counting my ales before they're poured, but it feels wonderful to be back from wherever I've been.
Extol Magazine's June/July issue is on the street, and there's a preview of Pints & Union. Go here to read it or pick up Extol at the usual locations.
June? Well, maybe. Yesterday Joe Phillips posted this at the P&u FB page:
"Making some adjustments, finishing kitchen and posting a set date within a few days ... "
It's close, the fog of start-up warfare is lifting, and the goal remains to get things rolling as soon as humanly possible. Joe's daughter Roxy put together this stellar poster, and the question mark will be removed quite soon.
Joe Phillips (Pints& Union) spoke with Kelly Winslow (NA Social) earlier this evening, and you can watch the video here.
Meanwhile, the collage shows just how far the build-out has come since around April of 2017. It's almost finished. Resch Construction has been amazing as always; many thanks to Steve, Jacob and their crews.
Joe Phillips did a live Facebook video earlier today at Pints & Union, courtesy of Kelly Winslow and her New Albany Social juggernaut. Embedding seems a challenge, so here's New Albany Social video link -- as well as a couple of interior shots (below) from when I ambled past this morning and chatted for a bit with Resch's crew.
Joe says it all, which means I can turn to beer news from Louisville, courtesy of Kevin Gibson at Insider Louisville.
Falls City Brewing Co. announced today it will open its new brewery and taproom on Friday, March 30. The newly renovated facility will be dedicated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mayor Greg Fischer at 11 a.m. that day.
The new complex, which was built nearly a century ago, is located at 901 E. Liberty St. — in the NuLu/Phoenix Hill neighborhood — and features a seven-barrel brewhouse set in a roughly 5,100-square-foot space, as well as a taproom area that is nearly 4,000 square feet, and an outdoor beer garden that tops 3,000 square feet. For the last several years, Falls City had been part of the Over the 9/Old 502 Winery complex on 10th Street near Portland ...
In closing, today would have been the legendary beer writer Michael Jackson's 76th birthday (he died in 2007). I can say without a shade of exaggeration that if not for Jackson, I probably wouldn't be in the position of shepherding Joe's beer program at Pints & Union.
For more, this story from last year. My misplaced copy of the Beer Hunter's first great book recently turned up, and I'm absorbing some timeless wisdom.
Ironically, given the book's influence on me, I seem to have lost my copy of it. But no matter. As the years pass, it's ever clearer to me that Michael Jackson's World Guide to Beer perfectly captured the beer world at a crossroads between old and new.
Furthermore, having been inspired by the text, I had the first-hand opportunity to experience the historic European side of this tableau before modernity began to alter it irrevocably, then to apply all these lessons at my own pub to what became the American beer renaissance.
I've been very fortunate in these instances, and I was even more fortunate to meet the man himself ...
For better or worse, I have a consistent urge to explain myself.
Now that this cat has escaped the bag, I suspect there'll be many such explanations forthcoming.
But first and foremost, Pints & Union marks a return to the ethos that originally compelled me to go into the beer business. For this opportunity, all thanks to Joe Phillips -- and serendipitously, Taco Steve (Powell).
More than two years ago, Steve and I were chatting by a downtown street corner as he vended tacos from his (then) cart. He asked me if it was a crazy idea to have a bar with three or four taps that always stayed the same; maybe Guinness, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a lager or two.
Not crazy at all, I thought; actually refreshingly sane, and a brand new niche waiting to happen. Soon after this I ran into Joe, and we began talking about what makes a pub great.
In short, as it pertains to the beer program, we'll feature the classic hits from the 1300s through the 1900s. I did my little bit to nurture the American "craft" brewing culture of the past two decades, and it no longer needs my blessing to go about merrily reinventing the wheel.
As for me, I'll be 58 in August, and I'm perfectly content with wheels that are nicely rounded.
Leave your cellphone in your pocket, and if you want to watch the local college hoops game with some cheap wings, well, you’ll be going somewhere else.
Pints & Union, which owner Joe Phillips hopes will open sometime in April at 114 E. Market St. in New Albany, will be inspired by European-style (or “Anglo-Irish”) pubs, built for conversing over a pint — or five. Even the name reflects typical pub names in Europe and the United Kingdom.
“We’re going to resurrect the spirit of what a real pub is,” Phillips told Insider.
During the past decade, dozens of older buildings in downtown New Albany have been repaired and renovated. More than a few of them are hosting restaurants and bars, and since bars are my natural habitat, you can easily imagine that while the devil's always in the details, I'm overwhelmingly supportive of these upgrades.
Work currently is progressing at two adjacent buildings on Market Street. The first one is big and brick, and it will not be a food and drink establishment -- although in the beginning, it was.
This c.1859 building was constructed as one building but finished as two individual units. The first known occupant of 110 East Market Street was Nicholas Sauer, who had a coffee house and later a saloon here, and lived above. The Capital Saloon first occupied 112 East Market and was operated by Frederick Borgerding, who lived upstairs.
The Gamble heirs sold the building in July 1888 - 110 East Market went to druggist and tenant Charles Knoefel, and 112 went to tenant and grocer Frederick Knabke. In 1921, the two separate storefronts were combined when the entire first floor became Mayes Drug Company. It remained that until 1935. By 1937, the Jay C Food Store occupied the building, and was here through 1956. After a few years of vacancy, the Thrift Dollar Store moved into the site by 1959, followed by Ace Loan and Sporting Goods, which closed in 2015.
This heavily-altered commercial building was once home to Lewis Hammond's 'Yankee Doodle' store, the interior of which is seen below in a photo from about 1917.
Later the building housed two bars, first Love's Cafe and then more recently, Good Times. It is in the process of being almost completely rebuilt from the ground up, with much of the original wood slated to be repurposed in the interior. When the work is finished, it will become Pints & Union, the forthcoming pub being sketched by Joe Phillips and yours truly.
Our shared vision takes the traditional Anglo-Irish pub as a starting point. It might be described as "progressively old school," although this phrase lamentably is being used by someone else. For a taste of what we're projecting for the "classic beer" program, here are two links.
It's still too early to go into details, so please stay tuned. Relevant mantras include stability, comfort and storytelling. Meanwhile, here are photos of the buildout, which should be finished in a couple of months. As oft times before downtown, Steve Resch and his construction company are doing the work -- and they're the best.
We've always guessed this concrete rectangle was poured to protect the corner of the building from being hit by vehicles turning into the alley.
... The gospel of the free market suggests that this situation eventually will solve itself. The solution might come more quickly if the city completes downtown streets, and the number of walkers and bikers escalates. At some point there will be a food truck, or existing establishments will do what we’re trying to do with the grilling program, at least in fair weather.
Unbeknownst to me, a partial solution may be in the offing.
... Mai oh Mai will be a French- Vietnamese food truck that serves New Albany, IN and the surrounding area. While offering authentic cultural foods, it will also serve as the catalyst for educational programs that will benefit the community directly.
Jimmy Mai and Joe Phillips offer a partnership that has contributed 15 years in the restaurant industry, six years in the non- profit sector, and over 4,000 community service hours dedicated to regional and national non- profit organizations. Their combined knowledge of educational programs and the restaurant industry has enabled the opportunity to start a social establishment based on service learning and culinary artistry.
Hmm, looks like Joe has been holding out on me. As they get further along, I'll try to keep readers posted, but as for the intrigue factor, I'm already hooked.
Another factor to bear in mind is our Floyd County Health Department. Once I was chatting with a food truck operator in an adjoining county and asked if he ever came into Floyd. He grimaced.
"Floyd County? And deal with them?"
Let's hope that Mai oh Mai doesn't begin its career on Double Secret Probation.
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