Restaurant: The Rookwood (Rookwood Pt 2)

Yesterday I shared my tour of the Rookwood Pottery factory downtown - today it's part two of my Rookwood experience! 

The current Rookwood Bar & Restaurant is the original home of the Rookwood Pottery factory. It's been a bar & restaurant since 2008 and is known for the views and the BEAUTIFUL interior.

The bar is really a spectacle - I just wanted to walk around it and stare. They used the former kilns and studio areas so creatively.

Their bottled beer list is quite extensive - Larry went for this crazy German beer... 

I hoped he would like it - at $10 a bottle! It was a wheat ale - Schneider Weiss Aventinus and yes - he liked it. I really wanted to take a pic when the barkeep brought it over - he had this huge beard and just looked like a beer expert.

Larry went with the grilled cheese & tomato bisque ($10). The grilled cheese of the day was goat cheese & fig jam - the look on his face was PRICELESS. The waitress quickly recovered with, "We can make you a normal one." Ahhhhhhhh.

I went for the House Made Pastrami ($11) served with kettle chips. The sandwich had some interesting toppings: stout mustard, house giardinera, emmentaller and celery root kraut. Wowza - I loved the mustard & giardinera (pickled foods) and the emmentaller is just a kind of swiss cheese. While I loved the toppings and the marble rye - the actual pastrami was extremely fatty - so much so that I had to open the sandwich and pull out half of the meat.

I also ordered a cup of the Rookwood chili ($4) - it has smoked Anaheim peppers, 4 beans, scallions, white cheddar & goldfish crackers. As you can see - they shafted me on the crackers! (bastards!) I have to say though - I didn't love this - it just didn't have a lot flavor. It was ok - but not something I'd get again.

There are really great original photos mounted around the restaurant to give you a hint to the history.

They also have pottery in some of the china cabinets and you'll see tile in the entryway.

My favorite thing about The Rookwood were the kiln rooms - they had 2 dining rooms and one bar room. They were very private and would seat 6-8 people. The kiln rooms were painted very dark and had really cool furniture. I would love to have a birthday dinner in one of the rooms - it just feels very fancy.

Why Should You Go? It's a really cool restaurant - but I didn't LOVE my lunch. That said - they have a great beer selection - so maybe go for drinks and hang out in the kiln room and decide if you want to have dinner there?!