A Fresh Take on a Traditional Pub Atmosphere
Druid City Social, a new restaurant and venue located on 301 Greensboro Avenue, is the brainchild of Bill Lloyd and Brandon Hanks, two local business owners in the Tuscaloosa area. Standing where 301 Bistro, Bar & Beer Garden once stood before its closure in March, the new restaurant offers a mixture between the formal dining atmosphere of 301, as well as the intimate and relaxed mood of a pub.
Upon arriving at the venue, the outdoor space seemed to invite the diner, with picnic-style tables set up on a lawn with a small stage at the head, conveying the sense that a venue is a place where one can go to embrace the night and enjoy live music. This proved to be true as my party entered the restaurant.
With aged brick walls and exposed wood ceilings and doorways, the pub aura of Druid City Social emerged. Clearly an ode to Tuscaloosa’s performing arts and live music passion, the rustic wooden walls were lined with posters of past performances and past bar signs. Another stage graced the middle of the indoor dining area, with TV screens littered throughout, with no angle left unattended.
At first notice, Druid City Social was clearly simply a retro-style sports bar with outdoor seating. However, a few details reveal that there is more to the restaurant than seen at first glance, and that is no clearer than the presence of an elegant chandelier suspended above the interior tabling. Like something out of a dining hall, the chandelier combined with the decorative tile floor thrust a formal atmosphere into the mix to create a fusion in the restaurant.
After ordering and receiving our food with quick and pleasant service, the meal was just as inviting as the atmosphere.
I ordered the “DC Shrimp” as my appetizer and was pleased to see that when it arrived, it was a considerable amount of food. The dish consisted of a large serving of battered shrimp, covered in a pleasantly sweet and spicy sauce reminiscent of something you would find in Asian food, topped with scallions and an iota of sesame seeds. The battering of the shrimp created a wonderful balance of textures between the crunchy outside of the batter and the sponginess of the shrimp. This dynamic, combined with the brow-sweating spice in the sauce and the salt of the sesame seeds, created an enjoyable appetizer experience.
For the main course, I ordered the molasses salmon, which was certainly something I had never heard about before. The salmon was complemented with jasmine rice and spinach made with garlic and oil, offering simple, solid flavors to counteract the complexity of the salmon. The salmon was cooked in molasses brown butter, embedding the sweetness into the flaky, charred crust and meat of the fish. I also detected soy sauce, which continued the theme of my appetizer in creating a salty and sweet concoction.
With Druid City Social’s somewhat confused aesthetic design, the venue creates an experience different from any in all of Tuscaloosa, which combined with its pub-style food, earns its place as a fun and enjoyable member of Tuscaloosa’s dining scene.
