The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wrecking Bar offers distanced patio service
The restaurant has been diversifying its offerings.
When Stevenson Rosslow moved to Atlanta in 1997 to work at Buckhead Diner, he stumbled upon a Moreland Avenue mansion with a striking portico and Corinthian columns. It was an architectural salvage business, but he mistook it for a bar. “I was going to grab a beer while I was driving around trying to figure out where to live,” Rosslow recalled.
In 2011, after an impressive run as a Buckhead Life Restaurant Group manager, he and his partners converted the Victorian-era Victor H. Kriegshaber house into exactly the kind of spot he was looking for when he arrived in town. Today, Wrecking Bar Brewpub has become a Little Five Points institution, a place that makes delicious beer, and food to match.
Even in pandemic mode — with abbreviated hours, a streamlined menu and a radically different beer program — it remains a vibrant and convivial spot.
On March 17, as the COVID-19 pandemic rattled the city, Rosslow told his staff that Wrecking Bar would close its cozy basement pub, pivot to takeout-only, and move from draft to canned beer. In mid-June, it debuted its so-called “barrel service,” a novel al fresco arrangement whereby guests sit at socially distanced tables and have servers drop their orders on old whiskey barrels, repurposed as tray tables.
“It's been really well received,” Rosslow said. “People like it.”
At the same time, “now that we have dining outside, people
just want dining inside,” he noted. The restaurant is in the process of opening its upstairs Marianna room, previously a rental space for private events, for dinein service. Tables for a limited number of guests will be placed next to 6-foot windows, which will be kept open to allow for ventilation.
“We just can’t open the pub, and probably will not open the pub this year,” said Rosslow, 47, who worked at Buckhead Life’s late Nava and Bluepointe before Wrecking Bar. He’s down from 46 employees to about 20; business is about 40 percent to 45 percent of what it was, he said.
The culinary program was refined during the almost seven-year tenure of former Executive Chef Terry Koval, who left last year to open the Deer and the Dove and B-Side in Decatur. (Koval no longer oversees the Wrecking Bar kitchen, but he remains a partner.) The brewpub just named Michael Staniewicz executive chef.
Previously of the Optimist, Staniewicz arrives shortly, and no doubt will put his own stamp on the food.
Meanwhile, Wrecking Bar has been diversifying its offerings — everything from frozen drinks on the patio, to Saturday carryout specials. And, it’s using its cellar to make and sell provisions, such as malt vinegar, hot sauce, sauerkraut, mustard, pickles, kimchi and fermented and aged sour beers. Also, it’s partnering with Georgia Organics to offer a pop-up market. From a link on Georgia Organics’ website, customers can order directly from farmers and makers for Wednesday pickup in the Wrecking Bar parking lot.
“I’m going to fight hard through all this,” Rosslow said. “I’ll be here next year. But, things will change between now and next year. We’ll have to have a different conversation.”
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