Daniel MaurerA Southern-grub joint on East Fourth Street will finally begin pouring whiskey on Monday – an accomplishment its owner said was “no small feat.”
The Cardinal has been serving beer and wine since it opened last August – something owner Curtis Brown perceives as a handicap. When customers find out the restaurant doesn’t serve hard stuff, they often go elsewhere. “For brunch people just say, ‘Oh, you don’t have booze? Oh sorry, we really wanted a Bloody Mary,’” he said.
Now the restaurant will begin serving “a nice Bloody Mary,” in addition to specialty cocktails that will likely contain infused and small-batch liquors as well as ingredients made in-house (the onions will be hand-pickled and the Marsciano cherries will also be made on-site).
The road to a liquor license was a rocky one, due to the community board’s resolution against supporting license applications on side streets, said Mr. Brown. Read more…
