Growler USA Kitchen & Taphouse opens in San Jose
Silicon Valley beer lovers have a new place for suds and bites with the recent opening of Growler USA Kitchen & Taphouse in San Jose. It’s the first California franchise for the Coloradobased chain, which operates microbrewery pubs in more than a dozen states.
The focus, as you might guess from the name, is American craft
beer: 100 taps of it, poured by a staff of cicerone-certified servers and bartenders. They’re pouring wine, cider and kombucha, too. The food menu includes the expected bar bites, plus fried chicken sandwiches, zesty Brussels sprouts and a Brewben and Bromance Burger topped with barbecue sauce, bacon, carnitas and beer cheese sauce.
The San Jose taphouse is owned by Belarus native Vaslav Taranduke, who moved to Silicon Valley in 1991 and worked as a software quality engineer for Apple, Macromedia and Adobe.
“In the back of my mind, I was always a beer lover and wanted to turn my passion into a business,” Taranduke says.
DETAILS >> Open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily at 787 The Alameda, Suite 10, in San Jose; growlerusa.com.
Martinez’s Roxx on Main reopens
The downtown Martinez restaurant Roxx on Main has reopened as a farm-totable eatery using local, organic ingredients to craft classic American comfort food dishes.
New owners and local chefs Lesley Stiles and Tony Lauro reopened the supper club-style restaurant — there’s still live music from local acts three nights a week — in August after a seven-month kitchen remodel. Graduates of San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy, they’ve been cooking as a duo for years, and hope to bring back Roxx on Main’s open-mic nights.
Stiles, who ran a sustainable catering business before opening the restaurant, has extensive experience working with local farmers markets, doing cooking demonstrations, farm tours and creating school gardens in Contra Costa County and beyond. (And you may remember her produce column, which ran in the Contra Costa Times 10-plus years ago.)
In addition to Roxx on Main’s sparkling new kitchen, look for a menu featuring grass-fed Alhambra Valley Beef, Ken’s Top Notch organic produce from the Sunday Martinez farmers market and Kathy Hurtado’s microgreens, plus tomatoes, figs and herbs from the restaurant’s garden. Breads are made in-house daily and the house wine is Martinez’s own Viano Vineyards.
The seasonal menu currently features starters and bar bites including crispy organic polenta square with sauteed mushrooms and prawn and avocado escabeche; salads including the Roxx Caesar, made with kale, arugula and romaine lettuce; entrees including a brined and marinated bone-in pork chop served with apple butter jus, and wild salmon atop lentils drizzled with lemony tzatziki dressing. There are also eight housemade desserts on the menu.
Roxx on Main also offers modern craft and classic cocktails with a full bar and locally produced spirits. Craft beers, including suds from Martinez’s Five Suns and Del Cielo brewers, are on tap. And they’re pouring Alhambra Valley and Briones wines, among others.
Original Roxx on Main owners Roxanne and Reed Cole closed the restaurant in mid-december 2018 after nine years, citing health issues as the primary reason.
DETAILS >> Open Tuesdaysaturday at 627 Main St. in Martinez. Live music 7:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday and 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Fridaysaturday. www.roxxonmain.com.
Nido’s Backyard opens in Oakland
Nido Kitchen & Bar, the seasonally driven Mexican restaurant in Oakland’s Warehouse District located not too far from Jack London Square, is nearly always packed. The restaurant is tiny, yes, but it’s also chef Silvia Mccollow’s thoughtfully sourced ingredients, distinct flavors and killer mezcal and tequila cocktails that keep Nido, Spanish for nest, crammed with East Bay diners.
That nest is growing. Mccollow and her husband and co-owner, Cory, have opened Nido’s Backyard, an outdoor “margarita garden” and Mexican restaurant in a massive 30,000-square-foot former parking lot. It’s not technically in Nido’s backyard, but it’s close — just a few blocks away on Oak Street at the corner of Embarcadero West, and walkable from Lake Merritt BART station and Jack London Square ferry terminal.
The menu features small bites and appetizers, like braised beef empanadas with carrots, peas and kefir crema; large plates, like a vegetarian Oaxacan black mole with chayote squash and green beans; tacos, including an assorted pork confit and chicharrones with pickled carrots; and dessert, which includes soft-serve chamomile ice cream.
DETAILS >> Opens at 4 p.m. Tuesday-friday and 11 a.m. Saturday-sunday at 104 Oak St. in Oakland; www. backyardoakland.com.