There has been a good bit of buzz about the latest sports bar to come to Savannah. To be fair, there is a big difference between a bar or restaurant with a few TVs and a good sports bar. A sports bar will have more TVs than they need on any given day and will offer a very wide variety of sporting events. Local or otherwise. We’ve all been to both. When you want one and get the other, it can be pretty frustrating.
I got a peek inside the Savannah Taphouse on Friday. It’s the newest sports bar to come into downtown Savannah. And yes, this is a sports bar. In every sense. Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is one of the investors in the concept, so that is very likely to bring it lots of attention. There are TVs everywhere. Each of the booths has its own television for private viewing and the kitchen is probably double the size of the previous one. I’m told close to a million dollars went into remaking this spot. It’s two stories, to be fair, it always was, but now there is a hole cut in the ceiling/floor so you can see upstairs from down and vice versa.
If you’ve been inside World of Beer on Broughton Street downtown Savannah, think of that. With a huge kitchen and menu.
I got to try a couple of dishes. Loved the Buffalo Chicken Flat Bread. Wonderful. A lot to share, so here is my chat with regional manager.
How long were you guys looking at Savannah?
Well, back in the day I used to run the Hooters out here. When I came to work for Scott a couple of years ago, and he wanted to grow the concept, I told him Savannah was a kind of a hot spot. Then I got contacted by Ben Carter, the developer. They wanted us to go into the outlet mall (in Pooler). Scott and I came down and looked at it, but they wanted us on the back side of the mall. Then we thought we’d only have business until 9 o’clock, then it would shut off. When we first came in here, it was what Scott had envisioned for the concept.
You know the market. You know it’s tough to get locals down here, with parking and all of that. What makes you different? What are you guys going to do to get people down here?
One thing we did was shop the market quite a bit downtown. I was very familiar with the market out there where I was at. I’m somewhat familiar with downtown. There’s a lot of bar food down here or fine dining. So there’s no good casual dining concepts. We are a great casual dining concept. Our menu is all from scratch. All of our dressings are made from scratch. Sauces as well. We don’t open a package and put it on a bun. We spent probably 4 months in menu design for this restaurant. Some of our signature items are here and some new items.
Like what?
We came up with some flatbreads. We did a Captain Crunch Chicken Tender, which are really good. We did a Poblano Burger. A She Crab Soup, Pork Belly Sandwich. All items we don’t have in our stores in Charleston. We tested it, played with it for about three and a half months. We put together a pretty good menu. All of the servers and cooks we’ve had in the last few days have given us great feedback as well.
The beers. Usual suspects? Are you going to go a little more craft beers?
We’ve got 40 taps. We’ll have the crafts going. We’ll have domestics for those that drink Bud Light and they don’t want to drink anything but Bud Light. That’s what they drink. Then we’ll have 100 plus bottled beers, which should appeal to every palate. We have an extensive wine list and then a full liquor bar as well.
What is Ben Roethlisberger’s involvement. Is he just a partner in the group? Will he make appearances here in Savannah?
He’s made appearances in the past in Charleston. Scott is trying to get him to come down here. I would assume that he will make an appearance here at some point. They’ve put a substantial amount of money into these concepts.
Will you invite fan clubs to come? Obviously groups are welcome, would you allow that type of takeover?
Oh yeah. Scott is an Alabama fan. His brother Brian is an Ohio State fan. Our stores in Charleston kind of have their own personalities and their own clubs. Downtown Charleston is kind of a mishmosh. We’re big Steeler bars believe it or not. I don’t know if that’s because we are associated with Roethlisberger, but majority of our fan base seems to be Steelers fans. That doesn’t mean we don’t welcome the Dallas Cowboys fan club in Charleston and decorate the entire upstairs in Cowboys stuff.
What will go up on your walls? College? Pro memorabilia?
Probably a mix. We always have one of or more of Ben’s jerseys signed. I think he has one of the throwback jerseys that he is going to give us.
Those hideous black and yellow striped ones that look like a Charlie Brown reject?
Yeah. We’ve got Mario Lemieux because played in Pittsburgh. Dan Marino, he played at Pittsburgh. He he hasn’t fully decided what will go in here. When you get upstairs the majority of the space is TVs. We also restored the original “Avon” sign that was outside of this building back in, I think, the 1940’s. It’s upstairs as well.
These booths here (lining one side of the restaurant) each with their own TV, will these be by reservation only if you want them?
We don’t take reservations, but if people call ahead and say “I’ve got 25 people” we’ll set up a spot for them. We can put any TV on whatever they want. We have a nice system set up for any TV.
Do you guys have a corporate chef?
Lawrence Rice is our Director of Culinary Operations. He’s helping me open this restaurant. We’ve been training the guys that will run this space in Charleston for 4 months. We do want to open another location. Probably Pooler I would guess. Probably one of the hottest areas in Georgia that I see. I think once we get this rolling, we’ll start looking at that.
You will be open 7 days a week? Lunch and Dinner obviously?
Yes. 11am until 2am right now. We’ll kind of play with that.
After a certain time no kids? Will it be 21 and up?
Nope. We have one restaurant in Charleston on Saturday nights it kind of turns a little bit into a dance club, but that’s only one. The rest don’t do that.
Lastly, I saw the picture of the burger. How much time and effort do you guys put into those things? They look pretty creative.
(Laughs) yeah. We use Certified Angus Beef. We season it ourselves. 1/2 pound patty. Yeah, there is a lot of time and effort put into that. That and our build your own salad are probably our two signature items here. The salad is popular. Customers can pick from a list of about 20-25 toppings to put on their salads.
CLICK HERE to see more from Savannah Taphouse. Scheduled to open Monday, December 14th
