Bringing drinkers and diners together: Dogfish Bar and Grille

Sage advice from everyone from high-profile athletes to politicians boils down to this: life is all about balance. Balancing work, play, family, mistresses, gambling, etc. When a bar wants to be known for its food or a restaurant wants to attract a bar crowd, this presents a balancing act as difficult as any, because the two groups are so different.

The Dogfish Bar & Grille on Free Street is a place that strives to accommodate diners and drinkers, and they do a fine job of it. The Bar & Grille is not to be confused with the Cafe on St. John Street, though they both have the same owner, Ted Arcand. The two establishments are only a mile apart, so what's the diff?

"Free Street has a larger area. The one down there (St. John Street) is a little more quaint. They have a lot of regulars down there, but it's still the same full bar with seating and all the rest," says bartender Nick Patrizio.

There are other differences, too. Free street has two decks, live music and a mug club, a holdover from the previous tenant, Free Street Taverna. But they also share a love for art, which is selected monthly by Sue Baker, and some similar menu items.

The most important difference is location. Being situated downtown, the Bar & Grille grabs a chunk of the afterwork crowd, a party crowd on the weekends and lots of traffic before and after Pirates games. It is these factors, I imagine, that contribute to the olive branch that the Dogfish Bar & Grill extends to the bar crowd with daily beer specials. The tavern has experimented with different specials since its opening in October 2005, some unsuccessfully.

"We were doing a special for a while. On Monday nights we had $1 dollar drafts. We don't do that anymore," Patrizio said. I can only imagine the miscreants that $1 beers bring out in Portland.

But the beer specials do the trick in terms of getting business people into the place. The diversity of the happy hour crowd was interesting. A few guys pounded Scudweisers like high school kids under the bleachers, apparently in quite a hurry.

People sat at the bar squeezing in some work, one of whom left a few too many $20s in his tip. The bartender pointed this out to the patron, who was quite happy to have been informed that he almost left a $60 tip. An honest bartender, a good sign.

The guy I remember best hurriedly finished his drink and said to his crew: "All right, I gotta go to Cub Scouts." Teaching kids responsibility and happy hour, quite a mix.

In an effort to maintain separation between guzzlers and diners, there are tables set and a sign at the door that reads "Please see bartender to sit at tables." Another form of segregation is that the back deck is reserved for the bar crowd while the front (which has a much nicer view) is for diners.

Some might be turned off by this second-class treatment, but I liken it to catering to two clientele bases at once, and I think it works. If you are going to the Dogfish for a nice dinner, you want the drinking to be subdued. This IS also a nice restaurant, after all.

On weekend nights though, things change as a live music crowd descends on the Dogfish Bar & Grille. The table settings disappear, the musicians start cranking and the Dogfish sheds its "Grille" to become just a bar. The kitchen usually closes quite early, but the bar stays open, extending the life of the Dogfish well into the night.

Lots of bars say they have many faces. The most common thing I hear is "we get a real wide range of people here." That argument can made for just about anything, say USM (18-year old students AND 60-year olds!), so let's get real.

The Dogfish will have lots of middle-aged business people during the week, especially around the early evening, but the weekends will bring in a younger crowd because of the live music. There are a lot of reasons to check out the Dogfish: The building is funky, the duel decks are great, the proximity to the Civic Center is convenient and there are good beer specials as well as good food. It's also on the way to Cub Scouts.