A Night Out – Cobblestone’s Restuarant and Sports Emporium

Central PA is dotted with a lot of small cities, all about what was a day’s horseback ride from the next.  York, PA is one of these and home to one of my favorite bar/restaurants, Cobblestone’s.  Oh and again, this isn’t a “night out”, more like a “mid-afternoon out”.  Lots of pictures so follow the jump

At the southeast corner of North George and East Princess (guessing these street names and many of the others are relicts from the colonial era), you’ll find a fairly non-descript building for any American downtown.  A tattoo shop occupies a corner, a small clothing store catering to more urban tastes has a window front, and amongst these is the entrance to the rest of the 3 or 4 story building. As far as I know there is no sign, but it may be just that I never look for it amongst the branches of the trees in front. It looks like nothing special at all, and opens into a long corridor.  And you are *sure* you can’t possibly be in the right place. But, at the end of the hall, you’ll see two double doors which open up onto a fascinating space. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As per their website’s “about” page, the building was once a Knights of Columbus hall and the space the bar inhabits was the ballroom. First thing you’ll notice is the biggest damn “disco ball” I’ve ever seen.

The huge room has a balcony of some serious size around three sides, metal and wood railings protecting the guests from a serious fall.  Two wide staircases lead up to it on two sides from a nice seating area with booths possibly made from old church pews. The bar itself is a full rectangle, festooned with many taps.  Pool tables line the sides of the room and large screen tvs fill the wall behind the bar.  If you’ve ever played a role-playing game that has a classic bar fight, oh this would be the place for a great one. They play good music too on their soundsystem, not too loud for conversation. And yes, it was 70s -80’s rock and roll, even Innagaddadavida.  And The Immigrant song, aka Viking Kittens.

Cobblestones has an excellent array of beers and some interesting looking cocktails, but I haven’t indulged in those.  This visit (and I think this has been the third or fourth time we’ve been at Cobblestones), the husband and I had our usual four beers to try. Alas, we do have to drive home.  The beers were:

Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest – my first choice.  Nothing terribly spectacular about this, but a nice ale hopped with citrusy/floral New Zealand hops. 

Dark Horse Tres Blueberry Stout – husband ordered this.  Very blueberry but not noticeably sweet. It’s rather like having blueberry jam on toast.  7.5% alcohol but you really don’t notice that at all. 

Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale –  My second choice. I ordered this thinking it was going to be more like an American Cream Ale.  Silly me.  It’s a Irish red, with the usual light caramel taste, and the color surely does reflect that.  It has a very very *very* finely bubbled head which sticks to the glass.  Relatively low in alcohol and would make a lovely session ale.

Dragontooth Stout (bottle) – from Elysian Brewing Company.  This was the husband’s second pick.  This comes in a 22 oz bottle so be prepared!  Both of us like oatmeal stouts for their relative lightness and smooth mouthfeel.  This, an imperial stout, is a bit stronger at 7.45% alcohol.  Elysian is having twelve unusual beers in 2012 to celebrate the coming apocalypse…ahem….

Generally I like to link directly to the brewer, but websites are down, non-existent, etc. for some of these.

Food is excellent too.  We got fries with cheese sauce to start.  The fries were fresh and hot (note: we did get there around 2 PM and the place had only about 5 people in it), and the sauce plentiful with just a little pepper heat to it.  They do offer cheddar but shredded cheese on fries only serves to weld them together in a large greasy mass once they’ve cooled even a little. 

We generally get sandwiches here since we usually make a Saturday visit to York to hit the local comic book/gaming shopand Cobblestones.  I always try to get the oyster po’boy but it’s about a 50-50 chance that they won’t have oysters, so always have an alternate in mind.  This time I got the  Monte Christo, a ham and swiss sandwich between what amounts to two slices of tasty French toast dusted with powdered sugar.  It comes with a side of raspberry sauce, but I think maple syrup would be even better.  As always, I had to take half home. Husband ordered his usual Bacon Blue Roast Beef, a fat sandwich full of well, what the name says. Both sandwiches come with house made chips, tasty as always.

Cobblestones is just a stones throw away from the local minor league team’s (the York Revolution) stadium.  If you are into sports (and we are so *not*) visiting both would be a nice package.