Dan Craig is bringing a little bit of New Orleans to the Garlic
City.
Next week Craig will open Firehouse 55 Bar
&
amp; Grill in the old brick building downtown that used to house
Happy Dog Pizza. At first, the New Orleans-themed steak and seafood
restaurant will only serve dinners, but by April Craig expects a
more formal debut, longer hours and a permanent menu.
Dan Craig is bringing a little bit of New Orleans to the Garlic City.
Next week Craig will open Firehouse 55 Bar & Grill in the old brick building downtown that used to house Happy Dog Pizza. At first, the New Orleans-themed steak and seafood restaurant will only serve dinners, but by April Craig expects a more formal debut, longer hours and a permanent menu.
Imagine cold beer, live music and a homely selection of standards and pizza along with Creole concoctions such as jambalaya and gumbo, he said. He also plans to remodel the building’s signature second-story deck with the classic iron grating found throughout the humid, jazz-filled city along the Mississippi.
“I want to bring a culinary and cultural experience to Gilroy with a Louisiana flare,” Craig said. “I just think people here are dying for places like this.”
Craig should know. He lives next door in the stucco apartment building that Gary Walton built, and last summer the blues fan rode his motorcycle to Memphis, Tenn., and then back to California via New Orleans.
“I’ve obviously seen Happy Dog, and when I saw it up for sale, it just matched up where I was in my life, and it was in my price range, so I though ‘Why not?'” Craig said.
Walton – a long-time developer commonly referred to the as the patron saint of downtown – is also in the process of opening a Spanish tapas and wine bar inside the Old City Hall building that now hosts Chips N’ Salsa at the corner of Sixth and Monterey streets. The two eateries should both be open by summer, and Craig said he looks forward to implementing all the restaurant lessons he has gathered throughout the years as a business association director and consultant for different cities in the Bay Area.
Craig founded Hollister’s Downtown Association in 1987, he said, and then spent some time in Berkeley and Morgan Hill helping to run their downtown business clubs. He even almost opened a brewery pub and restaurant but stopped just short of opening.
“I’ve had a lot of exposure to business success and failures,” Craig said.
Perhaps one example of that is the fact that he will retain Happy Dog’s head chef, who will ultimately prepare meals seven days a week. Craig even said he may sell fresh benets – a deep-fried pastry with powdered sugar popular in the Big Easy – and coffee Sunday mornings.
As for his future customers, Craig said he wants residents to know that Firehouse 55 will be a place for behaved patrons to eat and hear live music – not a dank den of Bacchanalia. The bar will eventually open from 4 p.m. to midnight Sunday to Thursday and until 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, when there is live music. The kitchen will serve dinner from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and lunch and Sunday morning hours will follow.
“I really want a place that’s open for mature residents,” Craig said. “You know, a respectable place where you can see live music.”
