You can’t make a reservation. A hostess will not seat you. No one will come to your table and ask for your order. It’s policy.
Instead, you choose your own seat: a stool at one of the long high tables that seats at least 20. After browsing the chalkboard menu on the wall next to one of the two flat-screen TVs, you decide on a hot dog and fries. You walk to the bar centered at the back of the restaurant with shelves of bottles showcasing available types of alcohol framed by a rusty-metal-looking wall. Through the wall of beer-drinkers, you give your order to one of the bartenders dressed in black. You sit back down and wait for the food to be served, wondering what about this hot dog makes it $9.
Local, formerly Marti’s Bar and Grill, is a restaurant and bar whose main features include using food only from local vendors and keeping its doors open later than most San Luis Obispo restaurants, serving food until 12 a.m. on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends. The Higuera Street establishment is geared to attract a customer base comprised mostly of college students.
As for that hot dog, the chef, Shaun King, will personally explain everything special about it after it’s brought to the table. He’ll tell you that the meat is from Hearst Ranch, a local farm that produces only grass-fed and single-origin animal beef and identify the special details of the dish — that it’s the equivalent of two hot dogs, cut into quarters and served on a pretzel roll with mustard, white cheddar and homemade pickles.
The rest of the menu includes basic bar food like lamb, steak bites, chicken shake-n-bake, grilled cheese, Reuben sandwich, nuts and fries. All entrees and appetizers range in price from $4 to $12. Since Local uses only locally-produced food, menu options vary by season and sometimes daily, depending on the chef’s whims.
But this typical assortment of food comes with something unfamiliar to the food group that usually consists of mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers. The steak bites come with a side of roasted bone marrow; the grilled cheese is a hefty sandwich grilled with mushrooms; the cobb salad is one of King’s favorites, and he describes it as a “man salad,” overflowing with avocado, two slices of homemade applewood-smoked bacon brushed with maple syrup, hard-boiled eggs, cheese and the usual grains. The simplistic options listed on the menu are much more complex and thoughtfully-constructed than they appear.
King said he wants to evoke a certain shock value with his high-level, rustic food. “I’m basically trying to create with every dish that fajita platter,” he said. ” The visualization of that fajita platter going to the table (at Mexican restaurants) — it creates drama. So the food I’m trying to do — it creates drama.”
Mathematics junior Jose Valdez praised the quality of the food and the service but said that he went when the restaurant wasn’t very busy.
“As far as the food goes, it was excellent. The service was even better,” he said. “I felt well taken care of. But, I feel like it if would’ve been busier, the service wouldn’t have been as good because we had to get their attention; if we wanted something, it was more on us than on them.”
This service style, however, feeds into the mood King, manager Brad Sturgis and owner Billy Hales want to create in their restaurant — casual yet upscale — that also applies to the food.
“I wanted to create bar food done really, really well and at a high level where it felt casual but not pretentious,” King said. “If I had white linens up all over this place, it’d feel really stuffy. I still want to be able to play sports, I still want to have some good music going, I still want to keep it a bar.”
Large, spherical lightbulbs radiate softly in the square, high-walled room. Cream-colored walls contrast with the dark, rich wooden tables highlighted by small yellow candles. Exposed wooden rafters in the ceiling give it a still-in-construction look, but carefully contradicts the clean, modern attributes. A projector displays sports or game shows on an otherwise blank wall. Chattering from the bar cascades through the rest of the room coupled with mellow music that blends to create a lively animated, but manageable soundscape.
“It seemed lively but at the same time I could still talk to the people next to me without having to yell,” Valdez said.
Customer Elaine Ball likes the new, changed atmosphere and complimented the long, skinny tables and background music.
“I think it’s a big improvement,” she said. “Marti’s was like a cowboy bar with really bad style. (Local is) a little classier.”
Local is open Tuesday and Wednesday 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., with the kitchen closed at midnight; Thursday through Saturday 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., kitchen closed at 1 a.m.; Sunday 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.