TALL BOY
TALL BOY
“Talboy. It’s in the can!”
In 2007 I stopped into Thomaso’s, a great little neighborhood joint in Portland, Maine. I loved the simple burger and fries fare and their menu of tallboy beers. I knew I needed to open a place like this in DC. At the same time, Smoked & Stacked was losing steam because we had built an amazing sandwich shop in the wrong location. Why not rebrand? Peter Bayne and I went to work and dreamed up Tallboy.
Our regular team of construction stars came in and reworked the space, extending the bar and modifying some of the walls. We added high op tables in the window and aimed to build a small neighborhood hangout. In our kitchen, we had a massive smoker leftover from Chef Marjorie’s pastrami production, so we went with smoked wings and grilled cheese as the base of our menu. The wings are outstanding and possibly the only healthy wings in town.
The huge sidwalk became our next playground when the pandemic hit. We built tin huts from salvaged metal from other bar-builds, creating some cool hideouts in Shaw, our DC naighborhoood. These Shaw Shacks were popular during the days of distancing, or is it the daze? Our landlord, the DC Convention Center didnt love the rustic look, so as the word opened up again, we went with picnic tables. We also dismantled our heated outdoor streetery and created a musch more welcoming face to 9th St. Tallboy keeps on keeping on.
