Metro Pulse/Restaruant Rover/Preservation Pub

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Preservation Pub
28 Market Square
524-2224

by Connie Seuer

I've found that the most powerful coping mechanism for overcoming my mid-winter drear is the hearty, warm food I can enjoy during this season. Stews, heavy sauce and meat dishes, pot pies, jambalayas, these are the foods that can kick-start a spirit ailing from short, grey days. Add a tall, cold-tapped glass of wheaty Hefe-Weizen lager to any of these meals and I'm set. Not even sleety rain and an afternoon full of meetings can get me down. And just such a lunch can be had at Preservation Pub, one of the newer businesses on under-reconstruction Market Square.

When Preservation's owners, Gregg White and Scott and Bernadette West, announced their intentions—to renovate the site of the Mercury Theatre, turn it into a pleasant and inviting pub, and direct the proceeds of the pub to aid downtown's community culture—there were doubters among us. Myself included.

I couldn't envision how even the mightiest army of scrubbing bubbles could get the barroom stink out of the old Mercury location. But they did.

I couldn't see how the Mercury's dark, jury-rigged interior could be turned into a comfortable place to hang out. But by gutting to the building's bones, constructing walls painted with warm tones, hanging pictures of famous folk with their respective aphorisms about drinking, installing a lengthy wood bar, providing ample booth seating, ensuring clean bathrooms, and compiling a jukebox that won't let you down, by golly, they did.

With all this going for it, plus a very amiable and accommodating crew and a great list of beers on tap, the third aspiration of the pub, to return proceeds to the downtown efforts, is already underway. Well I'll be damned.

If the hard stuff is your poison, the pub offers a substantial covering of vodka, tequila, small-batch bourbon, and other whiskeys to list a few ($5 -$7.50). Character-filled beers flow from the taps—Redhook Hefe-Weizen, Newcastle Brown Ale, Guinness, Bass, Catawba Valley Firewater IPA, and several more ($3.25). There are more craft brews and imported bottles than you can shake a stick at, as well as a selection of favored domestics. There's wine, too, and non-alcoholic drinks—indeed, there's a glass of something for everyone. Yet food is what a lunch crowd really wants (and needs) but the pub isn't set up to be a full-fledged restaurant. So once again, the proprietors took the road less traveled to begin offering a smattering of solid food to go along with all the good suds. They contracted the services of chef Holly Hambright Forbes to cater daily lunches to the pub, and voila, the amazing $6 lunch was born.

Each day brings a slightly tweaked menu that Forbes prepares each morning—a couple of standards and a couple of-the-day surprises. Considering the arrangement, diners should be aware that there are still some glitches in the system, but the glitches are epidermal, surface, easy things to work around. For example, if the pub crew hasn't got menus to the tables yet, simply ask for one. And be prepared for an informal presentation. Meals arrive on plastic trays, but don't be fooled. This is not plastic tray food.

A recent Monday found me enjoying a cozy lunch tucked inside the Preservation Pub with a charming, incognito dining partner. We selected a booth near the front of the shop where the non-smoking crowd gravitates. The dish of the day was rumored to be an etouffee, and I secured a helping of this low country favorite. Hot and steamy, the etouffee was a flavorful (and plentiful) mound of roux-drenched rice, treasured by tasty chunks of bacon, tasso, and andouille sausage. Several well-seasoned shrimp topped the meal and I left only their crispy little tails behind. A side salad accompanies this already large lunch—healthy green romaine, crisp celery, half-moons of red onion, and sliced cherry tomatoes. There's ranch, thousand island, or Italian for dressing, but I took mine naked and loved it all the more. Total cost...six dollars.

My sidekick selected a dreamy, grilled chicken pasta in a creamy, sun-dried tomato basil marinara ($6). The sauce was balanced, a rare find with anything related to sun-dried tomatoes, and the penne was ideally al dente. The chicken, far more than a few grilled strips atop a bed of noodles, was an entire breast, juicy and flavorful in and of itself yet perfectly paired with the rich and filling pasta. For beverage, my companion favored one of the bottled brews (the "champagne of beers," to be specific), also sold at the pub ($2.75).

For dessert, you could simply order a Guinness Stout from the tap ($3.25), but for a more traditional sweet (and less head-fogging), there are Magpies cookies to be had, chocolate chip ($1.00) or the original and unbeatable Chocogasm ($2.00). These, too, come from a branch of the Hambright family kitchen, baked up by Peggy Hambright (sister of chef Forbes).

To sum it up, the Preservation Pub is a neighborhood place, quirky in all the ways one can admire. And with lunch on the plate, it offers the kind of meal that makes you feel like you went home, kicked off your shoes for a bit, and ate real food that someone who loves you made. Available only Monday through Friday, it almost makes the work week worth it. Almost.