My colleague from Montreal and I were out in Fort Wayne earlier this year to do some training sessions and we had spent a good portion of the day setting up for the trainings. We had some running around to do to pick up some items that we would need for the presentations and to ship the products back to our warehouse in Montreal after we finished the next evening. My colleague is a vegetarian and I have to be cognoscente of his dietary needs when we're together. But it turns out that he can pretty much find something on the menu at any place we go to. After our last stop, it turned out there was an Irish pub not too far away from us. A beer and a bite of food sounded good for the both of us, so we drove a short way to the Black Dog Pub.
Brothers and restaurant veterans Jeff and Dave Hamilton established the Black Dog Pub in 2002 and it quickly became a neighborhood favorite for people living on Fort Wayne's west side. The restaurant is located in a strip mall near the corner of W. Covington Rd. and Getz Rd., not far from where Getz and W. Jefferson Rd meets up. (see map)
We were able to find a parking spot just down from the Black Dog Pub in the lot for the strip mall. There was a shaded patio area in front of the brick facade building, but it was a very hot day and there was no way that we'd want to be seated outside.
There appeared to be two doors into the Black Dog Pub and we took the one on the right. That took us into the lounge area. It featured a bar on one side of a well lit room with green and white checkerboard tile on the floor. The opposite side of the bar featured some booths and high-top tables. The bar area was an interesting mix of blue collar workers, duffers just off the golf course, older people enjoying an early evening drink and young ladies who looked like they just came from the office.
We found the last booth that was open in the dining room next to the bar. The dining room was also well lit and had a faux brick wall on one side with flatscreen televisions on the walls. My colleague was keen to watch some of the replay of the Euro 2024 soccer match from earlier in the day that they had up on one of the screens in the bar. He was able to get someone to turn the channel to the game on one of the televisions near where we were seated.
Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Ciera. She dropped off a couple food menus for us to look over and there was a beer menu on the wall. They had about 20 different beers and ciders on tap at Black Dog Pub. I wanted to get one of the hazy IPA's they had listed from a brewery in Indianapolis. Ciera went and checked on that and she said that they were out of that beer. I then asked about the IPA that GnomeTown Brewery in downtown Fort Wayne makes for them. Well, they were out of that! I ended up cutting my losses and got a pint of the Two Hearted India pale ale from Bell's Brewery out of Kalamazoo, MI. My buddy ended up getting the same thing.
The menu at Black Dog Pub isn't all that dissimilar to other pub-style restaurants. Appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches, burgers, wraps and entrees such as ribs and an 8 ounce beef tenderloin filet were prevalent on the menu. They also had pizza and calzones on the menu, as well as submarine sandwiches.
My colleague went with the Beyond Burger with a plant-based patty that I've actually wanted to try at some point (but have been too chicken to order). He said that the Beyond Burger's are pretty good, but he doesn't get them all the time because of how highly processed they are. "Even though they are vegetarian, they aren't all that good for you if you have one more than once a week," he said. The things I learn from a vegetarian.
I had seen a pizza going out to another table and that's what I ended up getting - a small (10") thin-crust with sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms. I'd had a big salad for lunch earlier in the day and this was really all I needed to eat. It was a tad overcooked and there was a dearth of sauce on the pizza, but other than that it was fine. Not the best I've had, but it was still good.
The Black Dog Pub was fine for what it was. My old neighbor would have probably hated the place because he's the kind of guy (full Irish) who rails against restaurants or bars who go into a strip mall, put up an Irish flag in the corner, and call themselves and Irish pub. And in this case, he's probably right. About the only authentic - or near authentic - thing they had on the food menu was fish and chips. No shepard's pie, no bangers & mash, no corned beef & cabbage - none of that was found on the menu at Black Dog Pub. But what they did have to offer was fine for pub fare. It worked for us that evening.
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