Town Tavern

Town Tavern Opens With Serious Cocktails in Alameda | Eater SF

"Located at 1437 Park Street, Town Tavern is an 1,800-square-foot bar and restaurant opened by Stanley Yee after four years of renovating his family’s former gift shop Silver Tree — new walls, huge windows, and fresh plumbing — with the goal of creating a perennial happy-hour vibe in downtown Alameda. To execute that vision he brought on Russell Davis and Danny Ronen of Unlimited Liabilities (Davis is a noted bartender with credits including Spike TV’s Bar Rescue, Bourbon & Branch, Rickhouse, and the Academia in Austin), bar manager Patrick Natola, and executive chef Justin Rucobo, who draws on international influences from his Hispanic, Canadian, and Lao family background and varied restaurant experience. Cocktails emphasize local and East Bay-made spirits such as Wright & Brown Distilling and Oakland Spirits Co., with plans to age, ferment, and cure peak-season local produce long term; current offerings include a Riptide Rye whiskey sour with a hint of coconut and a vegan foamer instead of egg white, plus a lower-ABV Marjoram Brandy cocktail with sherry and amaro. The globally inspired small-plates menu features fried-to-order chicharrones, bacon pierogi, bison poutine, New Orleans–style barbecued shrimp, and pork belly sliders loosely inspired by Taiwanese gua bao, while vegetables will appear as daily specials like a smoked beet and shaved Brussels sprout salad. The 49-seat space is family friendly until 10 p.m., has no set closing time to accommodate industry workers after their shifts, opens at 3:30 p.m. every day except Sundays, and had a grand opening scheduled for Tuesday, December 18." - Janelle Bitker