Barrel & Board adapts and uplifts in a safe space for our community
By Morgan M. Hurley | Editor
Moe Girton still has days where she relives the 18 months that Gossip Grill was closed down during COVID. There are a thousand little triggers that can take her right back to those days in an instant. It was a time when she was doing whatever she could to stay sane, regardless of a loathsome landlord, thoughts of bankruptcy, employee troubles, managing government bailouts, and more.
She kept her spirits up (no pun intended) by running the Hen House live stream, allowing viewers stuck at home to watch and learn while she made cocktails. Her own solace came from popular longtime local LGBT nightclub entertainer (and friend), Don L, who was doing his own live streams.
“Those got me through COVID,” she said.
Today, things are much better for Girton, and it shows. When she thought Gossip was going to shut down permanently she was made an offer by the Cohen Group for a property down the street that held a trio of businesses: BoBeau/Tacos Libertad/and Cache.
“They closed on Sunday, March 15, 2020, but California shut down on March 17 and they never came back,” she said. It was a turn-key operation and the restaurant was still even set for service when they got the keys. That meant quite a bit of dust and refrigerator cleanup a year later, but it was an exciting opportunity to have at such a difficult time.
Now, Gossip Grill is back to thriving and with the new operation, Girton was able to expand beyond Gossip into a space that she said is for those who have “outgrown” Gossip and want a break from a loud nightclub.
“[Gossip] is what it is and we really need that, but we also needed something else for folks who actually wanted to have a conversation and not yell, or maybe have a great glass of wine, or a martini and be somewhere beautiful that our community deserves,” she said.
She’s referring to the Boardroom, which is the “sexy speakeasy” part of Barrel & Board (B&B). It opens a bit earlier than the restaurant and you can still order food, but it’s a totally different vibe. The focus here is on queer, women, and POC.
Out front of the speakeasy, “next door” to B&B along University Avenue, there is &Bar. That vibe is open to everyone with its raucous music and red lights, and according to Girton, is “the cheapest and the best bang for your buck in Hillcrest.”
Barrel & Board is the restaurant aspect of the trio and Girton, along with her Executive Chef Mina Rosete, just launched not only a new food menu, but menus of new cocktails and mocktails that will be available to diners and those who just want to grab a quick drink in the Boardroom.
Since opening in 2021, B&B has served high-end charcuterie boards and does a mean catering business with 8- and 10-foot boards on the side. While Rosete and her five-person crew have taken the boards to new heights and put out some gorgeous and creative presentations, the chef missed the ability to show her skills on a plate.
Rosete, who comes from an artisanal and indigenous Mexican tribal family in New Mexico (Chichimeca on Mexican side, Pueblo on the U.S. side), pushed for expanding the menu beyond the boards.
The new menu will not only be more her style, but more about her culture and the plants, herbs, vegetables and seafood that are native to the area. But what she really wanted was something different to serve on, and that’s now happening.
“For me, having a white canvas to plate on is everything; there is a whole lot more versatility there,” she said. “I want my food to be beautiful, I want it to taste beautiful. I want to make food more playful and approachable and give the guests something to talk about.”
Girton, who previously launched the cocktail program at InsideOUT, has decided to let her bartenders create the craft cocktails and mocktails they have on the new menus.
As much as possible, Girton purchases her wine and spirits from queer-owned, women-owned and POC-owned wineries and distilleries and she has five new cocktails kegged – yes, kegged. They aren’t your mom’s cocktails, either.
Girton has also fully embraced the new mocktail craze, “upping” their game to craft mocktails, to satisfy not only those who don’t drink, but those who prefer edibles and microdosing, which don’t match well with alcohol, or even those who have a one-drink limit for driving but aren’t done chatting or ready to go home.
An important thing to note is her wine program. Girton has an extensive wine list – 75 labels – and 55 of those are available by the glass. That is unheard of. She is able to do it through her participation in the CORAVIN wine program, which consists of a hand-held device with a needle that goes into the cork, argon gas creates a barrier to protect the wine, the glass is poured, and when the needle slips out, the bottle is sealed again.
“With every glass you pour, you lose one year,” she said. “So after the first glass, you have three glasses left, the bottle is good for three years; you pour it again, you have two years left.”
That’s incredible knowing the shelf life of a bottle of red is three days, with five days for white. But it makes sense when you think about how few glasses are generally available at restaurants.
“Say you want a nice bottle and you just want one more glass of that same wine, we can do that,” she added. “It’s a buck more and allows me to have a fabulous wine collection.”
Her last Wine Club event (last Saturday of each month and hosted by Mariam T) had 72 attendees. “We are a wine tasting club that likes to have fun,” she said.
Girton was clear what her intentions are for the space.
“I’m trying to protect our [LGBTQ] community and culture,” she said. “We are still a meeting space; we are still a community space; we are still a safe space; we are still a space to gather to celebrate, and gather to mourn when we lose someone in our community.”
Adapting to all the changes of the current world is a must to stay relevant, and Girton and her team of employee-owners are making it work.
“If we can get through COVID, we can get through anything,” she said.
Check out their new menus at barrelandboardsd.com.
—Morgan M. Hurley can reached at [email protected].
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