Strong drinks and solid small plates put Townie on Berkeley’s growing (and glowing) American-bar map.

You know how it is:

You stroll into your neighborhood watering hole and feel instantly welcomed. Not just by the smiling faces of your fellow regulars. Not just by its house-made chicharrones and 5-inch-long, herb-speckled French fries. Not just by the fixtures, names, and shapes studding this scene: Espolón, Lagunitas, polished-concrete floor, Streetfighter II.

You also feel welcomed by the light and sound broaching those floor-to-ceiling windows: intrinsically, inextricably local light and sound. That milky summer fog melting to sunshine. Taillights inscribing red zigzags in the dark. Sirens. The roar and sigh of buses hulking to shuddery stops. The shouts of those who disembark. Shopping carts rattling past.

You slip into your favorite seat—at the zinc-topped bar, facing the vintage brick wall and 16 beers on tap. Or at a tiny reclaimed-wooden window table or a long shared table in the thick of things, or a bench-seated booth in back. Somewhere under that soaring coal-black ceiling, nested in noise, you sit with your coworkers, your kids, your dad.

And soon enough the friendly server brings your Pretty in Pink cocktail—Campari, Sobieski vodka, syrup, lemon, Angostura bitters, and an orange twist—with a dish of chubby green lemon-perfumed Castelvetrano olives and something golden-fried.

You know how it is.

Or maybe you don’t. Not yet. You’ve encountered genial neighborhood pubs in British novels and in Star Wars. They’re an institution in foreign countries and certain parts of this country. But here in Exoticker-Than-Thouville, where the average 8-year-old can eat with injera while texting, the local bar—not divey but family-friendly, first-dateworthy and hipster-chic, serving softly serious, sustainable, chef-cooked food—is the new Next Big Thing.

Berkeley’s manifestions of this remarkable phenomenon include Eureka!Burger, Handlebar, Perdition Smokehouse, all of which have opened in the last year, and Townie, which opened in July.

Occupying University Avenue’s Frank/Architects–designed, 75-seat former Caffe Venezia space, Townie does indeed sport Espolón, Streetfighter II, and the other features cited above—along with Art Deco lamps, Bulleit shots, pork-belly banh mis, and a stone-fruit dessert entailing mascarpone, peanuts, and absinthe.

Having managed San Pablo Avenue’s Missouri Lounge since 2005, “I’d been looking to start my own place for a while. The opportunity came up to rent this space, and, given its history and great features, it was an easy decision. The name is a reference to the fact that my girlfriend and I, and a lot of our friends, all grew up in the area,” says Berkeley native and Albany High School grad Nima Shokat, who helms Townie with his partner Maianna Voge, a fellow Berkeley native, Berkeley High School grad, and fourth-generation UC Berkeley alum.

“I wanted to create a place where I would be happy spending all my time,” explains Shokat, who once owned Analog Books on Berkeley’s Euclid Avenue. “So comfort and easy, casual service were very important.”

Those priorities shine at Townie, whose servers talk in easy, authentic tones, and, if you’ve ordered a drink or dish that they particularly like, say so with unguarded enthusiasm.

Choose garlic-cheese toast—parsley/garlic/rosemary/thyme-concentrated butter spread under Gruyère on sourdough slices which, toasted, are cloaked in arugula for a chewy/crunchy, filling/refreshing meatless mini-meal—and the bearded server beams with justifiable delight that you’ve picked his favorite.

Lead bartender Diana Krell has curated an interesting wine list (featuring, among others, Spanish Mas Fi Cava, Argentinian Andeluna Chardonnay, and Italian Mionetto Prosecco), a vigorous brewski list (featuring, among others, Schefferhofer Grapefruit Hefeweizen, Almanac Golden Gate Gose and canned Olympia) and a cocktail array that, like Berkeley itself, unites the savvy, the strong, the foreign, and the floral: La Floración, for instance, includes tequila, mescal, lime juice, and chamomile liqueur. The poetically powerful Barley Flower includes Bols genever, Lillet Blanc, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, and a cherry. (Granted, Townie was out of cherries—how does that even happen?!—one night when this drink was ordered; lemon zest was a flat, sad substitute.)

Served sans ice, some of these cocktails look small upon arrival. Don’t dismay. They pack a punch.

As is standard at new American bars, small plates dominate and are teasingly international. Served with not-fiery hot-sauce aioli, exquisitely long and perfectly textured French fries overflow a football-sized bowl. Looking like salted, gilded golf balls, silky-soft-inside Serrano ham-dotted Manchego-cheese potato croquettes—the ultimate tater tots—pose pertly in a bicolored Balsamic-mayonnaise marsh. Chicken-liver mousse with parsley gelée and crostini elevates chopped liver to near-nobility. Plump and luminous, a lone Marin Miyagi oyster bathes with grilled corn kernels in Old Bay butter.

Ingredients are sourced from Niman Ranch, Full Belly Farm, River Dog Farm, Shooting Star CSA, and Shokat’s parents’ backyard garden by Townie’s 27-year-old executive chef Dana Ryan, whose previous gigs include Gather, Michael Mina’s RN74, and State Bird Provisions.

Plans are afoot to add seasonal menu items, family-style specials, lunch, and eventually morning coffee-and-pastry service.

“The menu will grow to include a few more substantial items,” Shokat says, “but in general we like it short and well-edited.”

A startlingly stellar choice is Townie’s grilled Caesar salad: Heirloom tomatoes and Romaine hearts, charred just enough to smokify their sweetness yet retain a summery crunch, are jeweled with croutons and velvety, unapologetic bacon dressing. For $5 extra, the chef adds tender slabs of hanger steak, cooked to taste.

Yeah, steak salad. What could be more American?

And why, given a virtual world of eating options, are boldly American bistros and bars suddenly trendy?

Is it because every generation rebels against its parents—and thus, because Millennials’ parents told them beef was bad for them, burgers were boring, and beer was for bumpkins, the pendulum has swung, making American the new ethnic.

So now boba tea and green-papaya salad are so 2006?

The full-house crowd enjoying Townie on a typical evening is diverse. At one table is a woman clad in full kimono. While discussing Kurt Vonnegut, a couple pauses to quietly say grace. A child plays choo-choo with his grandmother’s croquettes.

The new American bar is not some creepy monochromatic refuge to which WASPS flee, seeking refuge from kimchee. Friendly, easy, and ebulliently themeless, the new American bar is ostensibly for everyone, as is (ostensibly) America itself. With its artisanal beers and studiedly sustainable sourcing, the new American bar is an everyone-loves-French-fries melting pot. It’s unpretentious—and we’ve reached a time and place in which an absence of pretense is nothing short of radical.

National chain Eureka!Burger, which prides itself on sourcing all ingredients and supplies from the USA, offers cute, juicy, über-delicious skewered spherical “lollipop” corn dogs. Launched by the folks behind the Fivetenburger food truck, Handlebar—occupying University Avenue’s historic Templebar space—serves burgers, pigs-in-blankets, and peach cobbler.

Those gloriously plain dishes, and every croquette that gleams near an East Bay beer tonight, are clear signs of revolt.

Townie

1799 University Ave., Berkeley,
510-356-4903
Townie-Bar.com
Open Tue.–Sat. 4pm–12am
Entrées $10–$17
Full Bar.