The hospitality industry vets behind Catcher and the Rye plan to deliver as promised.
Looks-wise, a ton has changed for the huge Palm Harbor hangout from Mike D’Amico and Austin Sanchez since CL’s last visit. But Catcher and the Rye, whose name speaks to one of the owners’ favorite childhood reads, is coming to life at 917 11th St. as intended: a whiskey bar and restaurant with American coastal comfort food.
The downtown destination’s bright, wrap-around outdoor patio — which features a number of four-top tables and is a focal point of the restaurant, or “Catcher” — spills into the “and the Rye,” a swanky, gastropub-style bar where product shelves that Sanchez and D’Amico built hold a wide whiskey selection.
Following a VIP, invite-only preview on Jan. 4, Catcher and the Rye will debut with 75 whiskeys at 11 a.m. Jan. 5. And that collection will keep on growing. The restaurant-bar is set to add five to eight whiskeys per week after opening day. A Japanese Scotch-style whiskey and American-made silver rye whiskey from Utah’s High West Distillery are among the current offerings, alongside 20 beer taps (local, national and international) and a full wine list.
Inside, references to Catcher in the Rye, including records and publications mentioned in the book, line the walls — so all you diehards, be on the lookout. D’Amico and Sanchez found some of these nods to the book online, while others they created themselves.
Their DIY attitude, carried over from their personal lives, has become another theme of sorts throughout the new restaurant-bar. The duo has constructed, repurposed and recycled nearly all of Catcher and the Rye’s furniture and décor elements.
“Since the last time you were here, we’ve really poured a lot of sweat into this place. There’s so many things that we built ourselves — and a lot that our chef built, actually,” Sanchez said.
Window sills and frames? Check. A majority of the tables inside and out? Check. Bar stools? Check. The front of the bar, which is covered in de-stapled and de-nailed wine crates? Check. The bar’s tap system? Check.
“It’s cool that you’ll be able to sit in this place and over time as a regular, you’re always gonna find new things, either that relate to the book or you see that has been repurposed,” D’Amico said. “That was a big focus of ours.”
In addition to the Old Fashioned, a big hit at tastings has been house-smoked salmon dip, which accompanies chicken lollipops and eponymous sandwich Catcher on the Rye (a hearty sandwich piled with ingredients like smoked brisket, candied whiskey bacon and house-made beer cheese on marble rye bread) as signatures on chef Michael Schulze’s bill of fare.
“Something you’ll see us posting on our company Facebook all the time is our deliveries coming in. It’s all produce and all proteins. We make food from food, and when you go out to eat, that’s what you’re supposed to have,” D’Amico said.
Weekend brunch with mimosas and Bloody Mary specials will follow two weeks after the opening, as will morning hours; the indoor-outdoor operation will act as a coffee shop, serving fresh muffins, breakfast burritos and coffee as early as 6:30 a.m.
Furthering its something-for-everyone vibe, Catcher and the Rye has a full sports package for HDTVs as well as USB hookups, and its community bookshelf is stocked with parlor games and books with a leave one, take one policy. As D’Amico puts it, the restaurant-bar is a millennial-fueled concept showcasing “craft food and craft drinks,” but will also cater to the area’s older crowd.
“[All] generations can kind of co-mingle here and feel comfortable with each other,” he said.
Are the owners worried about foregoing the soft-opening phase that new restaurants tend to embrace? Nah.
According to Sanchez, they’re confident that their training system — part of which involves five to eight hours of positional training for staff members before they interact with a guest — allows them to launch immediately.
“We’re very excited. We’re doing something that a lot of people try not to do, which is try to open in the off-season and kick all the dust off. We don’t believe in that, because in a soft opening you’re using the public as your beating post, your training post. Not very cool to us,” D’Amico added.
Like the duo told CL back in July, it’s all about the experience.
“We’re always building and selling the experience. That’s what we’re about,” D’Amico said. “We do that with great food, competitive prices, great service, great drinks. We’re gonna sell that great experience.”
This article appears in Dec 22-29, 2016.