The beer festival in Irving this past weekend played host to many brewers who got most of the attention, but Bryan Street Tavern was there, too, saving beer guzzlers from death by super processed carnival food.
Sure, the cheese on the sandwich pictured above is the same canned stuff you get on your nachos at the ballpark, but the rest of the sandwich was good, and fans who are used to ordering their cheese steaks "wiz with" will find the neon orange comforting.
All thanks to new ownership.
The folks behind the Katy Trail Ice House recently sold the business to Joe Hinkson and Waylon Yohe. This is their first restaurant, according to Brenda Fuqua, the event director hired by the new ownership.
Two women who work at the East Dallas tavern were on hand stuffing steak into bread and showcasing the bar's upgraded menu. In addition to the new cheesesteak, filled with loads of simply cooked beef, onions and red and green peppers, there's a new pretzel they bake on site. The wings I praised when first ordering them last year have received an upgrade too. There are now ten different sauces to choose from including mild, medium, hot, honey garlic, sweet & spicy bronze, honey chipotle bbq, mango habanero, cajun dry rub, and cluck you up. A thermonuclear option comes with a warning -- eat at your own risk.
The changes sound significant, so I asked about the pizza many patrons seem to love -- there's always at least one on the table when I walk through the tavern. "Someone who's been coming here a long time can rest assured the pizza is the same," Fuqua told me. There are a few new toppings like marinated eggplant squash zucchini and bbq chicken available for their stone fired crackery crust.
There's more beer available, too. The bar grew from four to 20 taps, adding local beers from Deep Ellum Brewing Company, Rahr, and Franconia. They've even got my new favorite: the Velvet Hammer. Looks like it's time to re-evaluate those wings.
