When you think of Cincinnati-area restaurants with a long history, places such as Arnold’s (opened as a bar in 1861), Mecklenburg Gardens (1865) and the Greyhound Tavern (1921) may come to mind. Newport’s Green Derby hasn’t been around quite that long, but its establishment in 1947 does make it one of the granddaddies of local eateries.
The Green Derby got its name from the original owner, Helen Cummins, as both a reference to a famous California restaurant of the time (the Brown Derby) and a nod to her Irish heritage. She and her husband ran the place with their children for decades until it briefly went out of business in 2009. After an interim ownership for a few years, the Brauninger family bought the Derby almost two years ago with the ambition of making it what it used to be in the 20th century: a central meeting place and dining room for much of downtown Newport.
Jason Brauninger, son of owners Mike and Melody, says the family “took a struggling gem, polished it up and (are bringing) it back to what it used to be.” He sounded delighted by the coincidence that the restaurant itself will celebrate its 70th anniversary on April 1, the same date his family will mark two years as owners. “Not many restaurants make it to the two-year mark,” he says — let alone seven decades.
The old Derby had been both a home-cooking, family-oriented community center and a place where the mobsters of Newport’s “Sin City” days met in the kitchen to set the gambling lines for each day, according to Brauninger. The new Derby definitely sticks with a comfort food menu, and it relives the mob era by displaying dozens of framed, vintage photographs from those days in its main dining room.
I had heard from a friend who bartended at the new Derby that it was worth a visit, so my husband and four friends came along one Saturday night to check it out. We had never seen the place, but our first impression was some astonishment at the sheer size and complexity of its several dining rooms and cozy, separate bar room. (I learned later that its labyrinthine layout is the result of various additions over the years.) We had a reservation, but every table was taken so we wetted our whistles in the bar.
I liked that part of the place best of all. In addition to the bar itself, with a dozen or so seats and space to stand at the end — which is where we had to hang, given the crowd — tables for two or four line the edges of the room. It’s intimate without being crowded, with dimmer lights than in the dining rooms, and most everyone was having dinner along with drinks. If there had been space for six, I’d have preferred to take our meal there.
And let me give a shout-out to the bartenders, who made excellent cocktails. You don’t often see a list that includes the Boulevardier — bourbon, Campari and sweet vermouth — and it was a good one. The Brauningers have amped up the bourbon offerings to more than 60, and beer drinkers will appreciate the 20 taps, mostly from local and regional breweries.
We finally got a table in the largest dining room about 30 minutes after our reservation, thanks to long-lingering diners before us. The menu here is traditional in more ways than one: plenty of familiar choices like fried chicken or liver and onions as well as a few Kentucky favorites reinstated by the new proprietors, such as a hot brown and bourbon burgoo. On Fridays and Saturdays the extensive menu gets a few meaty additions including prime rib and baby back ribs.
For first-time diners, it takes a while to read through the array of menu sections. One is headlined “Italiano,” with fettuccine alfredo, lasagna, eggplant parmesan and a few other pasta-centric dishes ($10-$16). “From the Land” has a half-dozen entrées based on pork, chicken or beef ($10-$29), with still more offerings in “Classics” ($9-$15) — where the hot brown resides along with liver dishes and fried chicken — and various fishy things in “From the Sea” ($11-$26).
With six at our table, we managed to try a pretty wide variety of dishes. The favorite of the night, by far, was the baby back ribs ($15-$20, depending on portion size), seasoned and cooked North Carolina-style with a vinegary sauce. I liked my appetizer portion of Kentucky bourbon burgoo ($5) — described on the menu as a stew of “slow-cooked venison, chicken, beef, pork and vegetables in a delectable and complex tomato-based stock” — although it came to table at room temperature and would have been tastier hot.
The Derby’s version of a hot brown ($15) went down easy as well, thanks to a cheesy housemade mornay sauce and plenty of applewood-smoked bacon.
Most of the other entrées were less successful: fried shrimp with too much breading ($14), overcooked rainbow trout ($16) and a small portion of grouper filet ($12) with disappointing side dishes. My slab of prime rib ($21) was cooked as I ordered, medium-rare, but didn’t have much flavor and wasn’t enhanced much by the cup of horseradish sauce on the side.
For drinks, we ordered wine by the glass from a short list, plus more cocktails and beer. After a while, we decided to try three desserts ($5-$7): chocolate cream pie, coconut meringue pie and bread pudding. The clear winner was the warm bread pudding with bourbon-vanilla sauce, one of the best bread puddings I’ve tried in a while thanks to a creamy sauce and not-too-sweet flavors.
Overall, we appreciated the price-to-portion ratio of virtually everything the house served. If you can get there on a weekend and you’re a meat-lover, check out the ribs. And see what you think of the bread pudding.
The Green Derby
GO: 846 York St., Newport, Ky.; CALL: 859-431-8740; INTERNET: greenderbykentucky.com; HOURS: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Friday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday.
This article appears in Feb 8-15, 2017.