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Sweet potato chili, creamy Byrd Mill yellow grits, cheddar, crème fraÎche, green onions and a side of cornbread. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Beer taps at Liberty Public House (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Honey chipotle salmon with sautéed green beans (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Pan-seared blue crab cake, roasted red pepper aïoli and ginger-lime basmati rice (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Liberty Public House (Photo by Jay Paul)
Amy Foxworthy, Chip Zimmerman and Josh Carlton walk into a bar … Don’t wait for it. There’s no punchline, folks — that’s the trio behind North Side’s The Mill on MacArthur and its younger sibling, Liberty Public House on North 25th Street in Church Hill.
True to The Mill’s form, Liberty seamlessly melds a TV-tuned saloon with family-friendly dining, a formula that attracts eaters as varied as that fill-in-the-blank joke above. It’s a combination — and tolerance level — that parents with small children are used to finding primarily at chain restaurants.
In September 2015 the co-owners of The Mill held a contest to christen their new hideaway dug into a historic building that had been moldering for decades. Liberty Public House, “LPH” on the lighted East End Theatre marquee outside, opened over the summer. LPH takes her cues from The Mill, proffering books, coloring pages and changing tables, as well as soundproofing panels between the dining room and bar to muffle noise. Besides luring young'uns with chocolate milk and juice boxes, LPH’s broad, affordable menu draws diners with its Virginia ingredients, such as Ashland’s Byrd Mill grits, and gluten-free and vegan options. Custom cocktails, rotating taps and extensive wines by the glass help, too.
The spacious dining hall, built a notch below street level in a former Art Deco cinema, has plentiful tables that can be reconfigured to hold the larger groups frequenting the restaurant. You’ll see a broad spectrum of colors and creeds sitting cheek by jowl. Booths are filled with diners on brunch dates as well as celebrating retirees — a tribute to the inclusive heritage of the building, which was the first racially integrated movie house in Richmond and one of the first in the South.
Church Hill has many exceptional places to eat, but they’re mostly short on one thing: space. LPH fills that gap. It’s where to meet for book club while you nosh on the honey chipotle salmon with sautéed green beans or a fresh, peppery arugula, pear and popcorn salad. Popcorn, in many flavors, scatters itself across the menu, a wink to the site’s bygone snacks. The trick to ordering here is to pick simple preparations with whole-food sides. Avoid the undercooked eggplant parmesan on a mountain of spaghetti, and much of the Taco Tuesday listings, which yield cold flour tortillas, both in the basket and on the plate, alongside musty-smelling broccoli slaw. Items under the headers “salads” and “handhelds” are failsafe choices. Crab cakes or grilled cheese with bacon work, especially when served with baby lettuces dressed with tangy balsamic vinaigrette. Sandwiches are meaty, their fillings a big step up from corporate dining. But in comparison to other nearby hasheries, LPH leans more on backchannel prep.
Backchannel ingredients are purchased, food-service shortcuts that allow restaurants to keep up with volume. A chef-driven kitchen doesn’t spice up pre-shredded hash browns at brunch, and makes its own Bavarian pretzel appetizer rather than finishing it off with parcooked breadsticks. With more than a half dozen scratch kitchens in the vicinity, LPH doesn’t quite measure up food-wise — though it does utilize some local product, and merits blue ribbons for portion size, speed and geniality.
The best reasons to patronize LPH, outside of ease of seating and service, are the bartenders. One, the former chef-owner of the short-lived fancy diner Nine North Fourth (now the home of K-Town Kitchen & Bar) will make you believe that every decision you’ve made today is spot-on. Wednesdays and Saturdays belong to Sean Cannon, a Richmond institution with a fast pour, tireless wit and smile that rarely straightens out. Years ago, Cannon used to, literally, drop an anchor from the tailgate of his parked, boat-sized red convertible outside the bar he was tending in the Fan, a pre-Facebook bat signal.
In restaurants, as in life, when it comes to places and people you’re fond of, memory airbrushes over their imperfections. At Liberty Public House, I don’t so much recall what I ate as I do how the staff made me feel: that the world, and everything in it, was pretty alright.
418 N. 25th St.
225-8275
Hours: Monday to Friday: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday: 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Prices: $2 to $16
Handicapped Accessible
