The best thing about the new Northside Yacht Club has to be the quality of the drinks. Owners Jon Weiner and Stuart MacKenzie, along with other staffers, have worked with our city’s Queen of Cocktails, Molly Wellmann, and it shows. The well-stocked bar — replete with special glasses and Tiki-drink pottery awaiting the bartender’s mixology magic — is the first thing you see upon entering. You might find little reason to move from one of the bar stools as your evening progresses.
Then again, part of the fairly extensive transformation of the old Mayday space includes the addition of an outdoor bar on the back patio, which probably turns out some pretty good libations as well. Bottles of fresh juice mixtures, stacks of fragrant pineapple and bowls of fruit and herbal garnishes are all good signs that these veterans of Wellmann’s Brands will deliver on the drinks front.
Under the circumstances, my first instinct was to pore over the cocktail list while my husband checked out the draft beer selection, about which he expressed strong approval for the variety of local and regional styles offered at a reasonable $6 a pop. The drink menu is divided into three sections with nautical-themed headings — not all of which were comprehensible to this landlubber.
The section called “Kill Devil” lists seven house concoctions ($8-$9) ranging from a couple of high-octane drinks (“Boat with caution” on these, the menu advises) called Suffering Bastard and Painkiller to the more tropical-themed Singapore Sling and Banana Daiquiri. After much discussion with the bartender, I asked him to make me the daiquiri, and it was not only beautiful in a Tiki cup with paper-umbrella garnish, but also quite delicious and sneakily strong with white rum.
Later, I tried the lighter Singapore Sling, a gin drink served in a tall glass with enough club soda to make it a refreshing accompaniment to food. A friend ordered the Suffering Bastard and gave me a sip, and I’m pretty sure this multi-flavored gin and brandy cocktail will be my first drink next time in.
If you want to eat something while you sample from the drinks list, ask for the food menu and order from a bartender or at the kitchen window, which is off a dining room behind the bar. There are a couple of booths in the front room and a few tables near the kitchen, as well as outdoor seating as long as the weather permits. We moved to the dining room and selected from a short list of vittles.
The fare might be described as typical bar food with a few creative twists. Most bar food leans toward meat, cheese and fries — your basic high-fat, low-cost, satisfying stuff. The Yacht Club has three sandwiches: short rib grilled cheese, smoked portabello ($8 each) and smoked pulled pork ($9). All meats are smoked and braised in-house, including smoked chicken wings (6 for $6; 12 for $12), which come with a choice of butter, Parmesan garlic or cilantro honey-lime sauces and blue cheese. For vegetarians, there’s the portabello sandwich and a large salad with corn, avocado, black beans and pickled onions ($9).
Another veggie choice is the vegan lentil Cincinnati chili over fries ($8), to which you can add vegan or dairy cheese. There’s also a rich poutine made with duck fat over french fries and topped with cheese curds ($10), along with side portions of macaroni and cheese ($4), coleslaw and fries ($3 each).
My husband and I split a few dishes: the pulled pork sandwich — very tasty with a fried egg on top of the open-faced bun; the salad; vegan chili and mac and cheese. My favorite bite overall was the mac and cheese made with cheddar mornay sauce. I liked that while it was as rich and creamy as such a dish should be, the portion was small enough that I could (and did) eat the whole thing without feeling like I’d gone overboard (nautical pun intended).
The man overseeing the cooking — which the menu lists as “Vitteler” — is Ryan Whitcomb, formerly of such elevated foodie havens as Nuvo and Local 127. I hope he gets a chance to exercise his creativity at the Yacht Club in months to come, perhaps with a new Sunday brunch menu and by experimenting with additional bar grub. As of the end of August, the brunch menu featured a buffet ($13) of breakfast staples — bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits with Glier’s goetta gravy — plus a vegetarian turmeric and cumin tofu scramble and brunch cocktails like a bloody mary with a pulled-pork slider garnish and Gatorpange (half Gatorade, half champagne).
This bar/restaurant sits in a light-industrial part of Northside, surrounded by tire stores and used-car lots, and is not blessed with a parking lot — street parking gets scarce on busier nights. There’s a side room where live bands play some nights and an upstairs space for private parties.
The space’s new décor — including a marine-rope ceiling, a porthole window and photo murals of the building when the 1937 flood almost destroyed it — are fun to see and go a long way toward setting Northside Yacht Club apart from its previous iterations.
Northside Yacht Club
Go: 4227 Spring Grove Ave., Northside
Call: 513-541-0528
Internet: facebook.com/northsideyachtclub
Hours: 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Monday-Saturday; 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Sunday.
This article appears in Sep 23-29, 2015.