Just in time for baseball season, a new restaurant, Brickstone, has welcomed Clevelanders and visitors alike to taste their BBQ fare and enjoy a cold one before heading off to an Indians game. Brickstone is taking a chance, opening doors in a less than lucky location: the former home of GoodFellers, Local Heroes, and Cooper’stown over the span of only several years. No one has been particularly successful at maintaining a following of diners and drinkers in these locations, but Brickstone may be just what we needed.
Service and Atmosphere
Walking in, I immediately took note of the classy, yet simplistic nature of the place. The first thing that caught my eye was the prominent brick oven–I would later learn that they boast homemade brick oven pizzas using that very fixture. Brickstone is huge, too, with a bar area that seats 150 and a main dining area that allows up to 160.
Perhaps the most unique thing that Brickstone is doing is morphing itself into a live music venue on weekend evenings. They’ll be hosting a variety of musical types, but we were glad to see the incredibly talented jazz-playing Bob Niederriter Trio performing during our visit.
The service during our visit was nothing short of excellent: our server was friendly and polite, extremely attentive, and our food was delivered just shortly after placing our orders.
The Drinks
Another thing that Brickstone has going for it is the great beer selection: take your pick from one of the 16 beers on tap or the variety of 75 craft, domestic, and imported bottles. The beers on tap include expected staples like Yuengling, Miller Light, and Summer Shandy, with nothing else too exotic or out of the ordinary mixed in. The bottled options are a bit more adventurous, featuring choices like Sam Smith strawberry and raspberry, 21st Amendment Back in Black, Stone IPA, Victory Swing, among many others. They even offer a couple of gluten-free beer choices.
If you’re more of a wine drinker, you’ll likely appreciate your options as well: no Barefoot or Shutter Home like you’ll find in most sports bars. Instead, Brickstone offers up a list of about 10 wines by the glass, and plenty of affordable bottles to choose from.
The Food
Brickstone boasts a menu that’s centered around smoked meats, but they also have an excellent variety of brick oven pizzas, as well as a nice selection of sandwiches, salads, and pasta dishes.
We first sampled the salmon blt ($11), a tasty sandwich of grilled salmon, topped with fried green tomatoes, candied bacon, arugula, and a remoulade sauce all piled on two slices of ciabatta. The salmon was a bit too charred tasting for me, but the rest of the sandwich was near perfect: the salmon was otherwise tender and flaky, the deep fried green tomato slices were a tasty twist, the remoulade was just spicy enough, and the ciabatta was noticeably fresh.
We also sampled the flight of four smokehouse sliders ($15) which included a BBQ beef brisket, BBQ pulled pork, BBQ pulled chicken, and smoked turkey slider. The best out of the bunch was by far the BBQ beef brisket, a mound of tender and moist brisket topped with crispy onion straws and cheddar served on a fresh slider bun.
Both meals came with sides of delicious battered fries–perfectly crispy on the outside but nice and moist on the inside.
Overall
Overall, Brickstone is much nicer than many of the surrounding bars in the area, but not so nice that I wouldn’t want to stop in to grab a beer and some tasty BBQ before the game. My fingers are crossed that this one will stick around for awhile because I can’t wait to return for some brick oven pizza!
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1 Comment
Was at Brickstone on Monday and had pizza. Great service and great pizza!