2020 Gumbo Final - Book - Page 24
Beer in the
Garden
Story: Lia Salime
Photo: Bella Biondini
Design: Mariah Graham
n
22
Mid City Beer Garden opens its
gates to the Baton Rouge community
estled between Mid City and the Garden
District on the corner of Government Street
and Steele Boulevard, the bar is a new
concept to the city that serves beverages
and food in a contemporary, open space.
Customers walk into a courtyard-like space
filled with plants and ample seating with
interspersed metal barstools and metal and
wood tables. There is an inside bar with pine
ceilings and a separate room for private
events.
The beer garden is the brain child of owners
Brian Baiamonte and Dave Remmetter, who
own Radio Bar, and Kelli Paxton, a former
manager at Radio Bar. Remmetter attended
the University as a general studies major in
the 1990s while Paxton is an LSU graduate.
The developers had proposed the project
back in 2015. Four years later, their vision
has come to life.
“They’ve obviously put a lot of time and
effort into this, which is great,” said Eleece
Aliano, Mid City Beer Garden brand
ambassador and special events coordinator.
“They’ve actually been looking at a beer
garden, I want to say, for about three or four
years, and now it’s finally here. We almost
started crying the first day we were open.”
Aliano was a bartender at Radio Bar. She was
brought over into the operation two months
ago to determine the tuning details and how
service was going to be. She said it’s been a
great ride so far and that her favorite plant in
the garden is a candle stick plant that opens
during the day but closes at night. She said
servers can answer questions about the
plants in the garden.
According to Aliano, the bar has 50 beers
on draft and another 15 in bottles and cans.
Included are local brews like Abita and
Gnarly Barley. The bar also offers wine
on draft as well as cold brew coffee and
kombucha. One thing it highlight is that it is
a neighborhood bar so it has non-alcoholic
beverages customers can enjoy, like
kombucha from local brand Big Easy Bucha.
The bar also offers snacks. You can
accompany a lager with grilled bratwurst
on a soft pretzel bun or enjoy an IPA with
cheese fries or Chelsea’s famous grilled
cheese and tomato basil soup, a tribute to
a previous restaurant owned by Remmetter.
Aliano shares the dish has been a hot
commodity.
“We wanted something that is a breathable
building,” Aliano said. “An open air space
that people can come and enjoy and
basically have a beer in Jurassic Park. You
know, enjoy the environment, enjoy the
neighborhood and enjoy craft beers. We
want to make it known that we are a bar and
not a restaurant. We are a bar that happens
to have a couple snacks.”
The locale is age-restricted to patrons
21-and-up because of the zoning and
licensing in the area. However, Aliano said
they are fur baby friendly, and dogs are
more than welcome. The restaurant is also
home to a frog Aliano found on their very
first day of business who seems to like the
beer garden as well. They are thinking of
baptizing him “Hoppy.”
“Our beers change pretty frequently,” Aliano
said. “This past weekend, we’ve gotten to
experience how Baton Rouge likes their
beer, and they like it a lot.”