Good Monday morning and welcome to day two of Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week, the place we’re spending time with Bo Hicks, the proprietor of Druid Metropolis Brewing Firm and Ell’s Kitchen.
Every day this week, the Thread and Go to Tuscaloosa will spotlight the town’s most in-demand eating areas and the palms that put together our most interesting meals in options revealed each morning.
Hungry for extra? Over 30 collaborating eateries are additionally providing distinctive gadgets or particular reductions on their hottest orders all week lengthy! Learn more and get connected at the Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week website now.
On the coronary heart of Tuscaloosa’s Druid Metropolis Brewing Firm and their still-new Ell’s Kitchen, you will discover a dedication to service – serving prospects, after all, however serving workers, too, and the broader neighborhood as properly.
That could also be due to how a lot founder Bo Hicks owes to the service trade – a Birmingham native whose household moved to Brookwood earlier than he was 10, Hicks mentioned his first work in serving meals and bartending helped him keep away from making a dwelling underground.
“I grew up there within the county, went to Brookwood Excessive College and I made a decision that as noble as a occupation as coal mining is – and I imply that actually, with out sarcasm – it wasn’t for me,” Hicks mentioned.
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So as a substitute of a job with Walter Vitality, Hicks was off to Shelton State after highschool, the place he mentioned he half-planned to grow to be a historical past trainer earlier than he dropped out to, in his phrases, be part of bands, increase hell and play video video games.
Dwell music led Hicks to the bar scene, and shortly sufficient he was slinging drinks at Egan’s on the Strip, working late nights amid the now-closed dive bar’s dim lights, thick smoke and loud music.
After a number of years, although, Hicks got here to comprehend that like lengthy days mining metallurgical coal, lengthy nights bartending got here with their very own tolls to pay.
He transitioned to working daytime hours at Manna Grocery, the place he was when the grassroots Free the Hops motion sparked a flurry of adjustments to Alabama legislation governing the brewing of beer.
By 2012, lawmakers had voted to permit the sale of stronger brews, legalized taprooms and OK’d bigger bottles for beer.
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Hicks and his late enterprise accomplice determined to pool sources and open Tuscaloosa’s first fashionable brewery earlier than somebody lamer beat them to the punch.
“We determined that someone was going to need to open a brewery in Tuscaloosa simply to market themselves as being near the College,” Hicks mentioned. “However we needed to be greater than that, needed to be a tentpole of neighborhood and for artistic minds on the town.”
The duo acquired busy and bought their first beer in October 2012, debuting it at a now-near-mythical secret present at Egan’s that includes Brittany Howard and the Alabama Shakes.
Quick ahead 12 years and rather a lot has modified at DCBC – they partnered in 2019 with Huntsville’s Straight to Ale Brewing and shortly after started working critically on increasing right into a new and far bigger house in the identical buying middle they’ve at all times occupied.
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Then Roberts tragically died final February, simply earlier than the brewery re-opened within the new constructing.
The brand new sq. footage allowed Hicks to introduce the Moon Room, a small however groovy venue for karaoke, comedy and aspiring musicians which is a large step up from their house for dwell leisure on the authentic taproom.
It additionally meant final summer time, Hicks was in a position to open Ell’s Kitchen, the place he and Tyler Marshall prepare dinner up easy plates to enrich the beers on provide within the taproom.
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“It did not make sense to construct a ten,000-foot manufacturing facility, nevertheless it did make sense to get into a much bigger house after which additionally provide some meals along with our ‘liquid bread,'” Hicks mentioned. “Ell’s Kitchen is known as in honor of Elliott as a result of if there’s something that man liked, it was to eat. Tyler helps me run it, and we love that it is one other outlet to get artistic, give you one thing and implement these new concepts.”
Hicks mentioned opening a restaurant contained in the brewery has been an thrilling problem and a tightrope train in deciding what’s price making by hand and what’s higher being purchased. Ell’s incorporates Alabama Conecuh Sausage, as an example, so Hicks and co. do not must make hyperlinks by hand and find yourself charging $20 for a plate of meat.
That does not imply Hicks is chopping corners, although – the opposite proteins served at Ell’s Kitchen are cooked in a Shirley Fabrication smoker made proper right here in Tuscaloosa over hickory and pecan wooden the employees splits from logs within the car parking zone.
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Hicks mentioned it has been an important 12 months since opening the Kitchen as a result of it gives many new avenues for service.
Not everybody likes beer, as an example, and Hicks mentioned the restaurant serves these patrons one thing to take pleasure in and offers them a solution to assist DCBC throughout a present or comedy evening. It is also a brand new artistic outlet for Hicks, Marshall and the remainder of the employees in addition to a rising income stream.
COVID and the inflation it has pushed have prevented Hicks from doing all the pieces he desires within the house, however that does not imply they are not having time.
“We have not been in a position to execute fairly the grandiose plans we have cooked up for Ell’s Kitchen, however that is enjoyable in its method,” he mentioned. “Our restricted gear offers us simply one other solution to be artistic. So a lot of our greatest concepts have been born out of claiming, ‘Hey, what if we tried this?'”
Marshall just lately got here to Hicks and mentioned whereas sleeping, he had a dream about making a pizza.
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It featured a tacky base, not a tomato sauce, plus floor meat and sliced pickles, completed with a yellow mustard drizzle – a sort of cheeseburger pizza.
Hicks greenlit the thought, and Marshall’s dream pizza will probably be out there at Ell’s Kitchen throughout Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week, that includes decreased Conecuh as a substitute of beef.
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AN EXCLAMATION POINT ON THE TUSCALOOSA EXPERIENCE
Hicks mentioned when he and Elliot opened the brewery, he did not even know if it could assist him sufficient to depart his job at Manna.
Greater than a decade later, he is constructed one thing particular and undeniably Tuscaloosan at Druid Metropolis. The wood bartop was pulled from Alberta’s Leland Lanes after the bowling alley closed, the emblem options the long-lasting crescent of the Moon Winx Lodge and the “Sistine Chukker” adorns the ceiling.
“I nonetheless derive loads of pleasure from being an attention-grabbing place in Tuscaloosa and being a welcoming place, ” Hicks mentioned. “Along with our superior regulars, you get to fulfill loads of neat individuals who are touring and need to cease at a brewery. Hopefully, we put an exclamation level on their expertise right here in Tuscaloosa.”
And it is greater than the decor. The brewery is a neighborhood hub that hosts trivia nights, karaoke is coming quickly and dwell music rocks the Moon Room usually, even when that a part of the enterprise is break-even at finest.
‘A place the place you are getting a assure, the place you already know the employees will maintain you and folks are going to take heed to you, that may be a godsend when it is a Wednesday evening and you have 500 miles between stops and there is this place within the center,” Hicks mentioned. “Having performed in bands and toured, I need to be that place for people, even when it is a deficit. I feel it is virtually a neighborhood service.”
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Hicks mentioned he is not positive what the longer term holds or how lengthy he’ll be this hands-on at Druid Metropolis, however that so long as the doorways are open it is going to be a welcoming place for the whole neighborhood.
“Similar to anyone, there are days I ask myself ‘Man, do I need to do that in the present day?'” Hicks mentioned. “However I feel my character kind is a giver, and after I see individuals get genuinely delighted that they will select and spin a report, play some basic video video games or get a shock listening to dwell music – that is nonetheless actually cool. That is gratifying.”
Druid Metropolis Brewing and Ell’s Kitchen are positioned in Parkview at 70114th Avenue. They open at 4 p.m. Monday by way of Thursday, for lunch at 11 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and at 2 p.m. on Sundays. Along with a big selection of craft beers, they now provide sandwiches, tacos, pizzas, nachos and extra at Ell’s.
(Stephen Dethrage | Tuscaloosa Thread)
Throughout Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week, Ell’s Kitchen is providing a variation on their Eldridge sandwich that includes smoked pulled pork, house-made pimento cheese, and sliced pickles served scorching from a panini press.
This profile is the second in a sequence as a part of Visit Tuscaloosa’s Restaurant Week 2024, which is introduced this 12 months by UA Online.
Keep related to the Tuscaloosa Thread for extra options each morning this week.
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