The Merging of All Good Things in Life
Someone once said to me that “There is nothing left in the world to invent; you can only combine things that already exist.” Chesterfield soon will be home to a great new idea that I wish I had thought of first — a great bar that takes advantage of the free market and offers customers a choice well beyond what the market already offers. There is a new restaurant coming called “International Tap House.” Just for some brief background on this, it will have 40 beers on tap and 500 bottles in stock that you can choose from — or, if you so choose, that you can take home with you.
The part that caught my interest was not only the wide range of beer selection (who can disagree with that?) but also the way they will do their food. Instead of trying to be good at everything, they have chosen to be really great at one thing, and let others deal with the hassle of cooking. Rather than serving food from an in-house kitchen, they will instead be allowing customers to order food from local surrounding restaurants, such as Surf Dogs, Foodies, and East Coast Pizza. Just tell the servers what you want, and they will order it for you.
I particularly love this idea because it allows the merging of several different capital markets into one place. Instead of offering subpar or par food, they will be offering good/great food from other merchants, thereby utilizing the services those establishments already offer. Additionally, they will be a no-smoking bar inside and a smoking bar on the outside patio — again, playing to the widest possible market. They seem to have merged a Growler’s-style menu (which has gotten too bland for my tastes) and a Friar Tuck’s or Lucas Liquor type of selection. This kind of restaurant allows for the percentage of drinkers who actually enjoy lots of choice and high-quality food to come together with the same people who “enjoy” BMC and bar food. Additionally, I like the fact that they still allow smoking on some level. Hopefully, they won’t draw a line in the sand with cigars — but we’ll see. I’m not sure there is anything better than a good cigar from a small island nation south of Florida and a good RIS. Who knows, this may even get me out of U. City once in a while.
A strong hat-tip goes to my buddy Mike Sweeney over at STLHops.com (a St. Louis beer blog), who first alerted me to this story.
