There's dining and sipping news for Greenville Avenue with the arrival of Feed Company, a new restaurant with a focus on good food and an exceptional list of bourbons.
The address is 5631 Alta Ave., a location that has seen concepts come and go, most notably Thai restaurant Nandina, which did pretty well. But Feed Company's owners aim to make you forget everything that was there before.
They're a trio of friends with diverse experience in the food and beverage industry: Sameer Patel has a financial background, while his partners Patrick Bruce and Anthony Rivera have worked for a number of restaurants, as well as distributor Ben E. Keith.
Their menu is a collection of robust dishes ranging from shrimp and grits to street tacos with pork or vegetarian-style with crispy zucchini. They're focused on sourcing products that are free of antibiotics and hormones whenever possible.
Dishes to share include mussels, flautas filled with corned beef, and a half-rack of baby-back ribs. There are charcuterie boards; four creative salads, including one with arugula; and sandwiches such as smoked turkey, fried chicken, pastrami, and a cheese with Muenster, arugula, and a sunny-side egg.
The first thing that makes Feed Company stand out is its policy of serving breakfast all the time. That means yogurt with fruit, pancakes, migas, and breakfast tacos with chorizo and scrambled eggs, any time it's open.
"We know how much people love breakfast, and in that area in particular, there are no late-night breakfast offerings," Patel says. "That's an area that has more bars. We want to bring something the neighborhood doesn't have."
The second standout is Feed Company's expansive collection of bourbons and its customer-friendly approach to serving it.
"We didn't start out as a bourbon place, but as Patrick developed the menu, he found so many great bourbons coming out of Texas and across the United States that we decided we had to give people an opportunity to try them at a reasonable cost," Patel says.
That means more than 120 bourbons and scotches, sourced from Texas to Tennessee to Canada, priced from a $7 glass of Buffalo Trace to a $180 glass of 30-year-old Balvenie. Their policy allows customers to order just a sip, and to get a taste of some pretty special bourbon they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford.
"Patrick assembled a great selection," Patel says. "You can try every bourbon we have. You can get a taster for a nominal price or order a full pour. Some of those bourbons are expensive and hard-to-get. We also have flights we've created, or you can create our own."
They also have an actual bourbon menu you can see, with prices listed.
"A lot of places, if you ask to see a bourbon menu, they don't have one," Patel says. "They ask you what you're looking for, and then you find out it's $40 a glass. We wanted to make sure we were being transparent about it. You're the customer, the choice is yours."
Wines are competitively priced, with known labels like Meiomi at $9 for a glass.
The location has been an Asian restaurant, a scurvy jazz bar, and back in the day it was the cherished restaurant L'Ancestral. It's been given a beautiful makeover, with a consult from restaurant design group Jones Baker, and it has a near priceless commodity in the neighborhood: dedicated parking via their own parking lot.
They'll open on June 9.
