A sports bar that does breakfast – now that’s something you don’t see all the time.
Nor is pigs in a blanket on that breakfast menu.
Mitchell’s Sports Bar & Grill (5607 St. Joe Road; 969-0021) debuted a new menu Tuesday, expanding the options from two pages to four, with one page each for appetizers, sandwiches, breakfast and wings.
“I didn’t change all the old stuff,” co-owner Ben Lane says. “I took out some of the stuff that wasn’t selling and replaced it with new things with a twist that you can’t really find in any other restaurant.”
Like a sausage inside a pancake, or an appetizer that wraps a marinated chicken breast with bacon before it’s breaded and fried.
Lane has been with Mitchell’s since it opened in April 2011, but he bought the restaurant with business partner Landon Nichols in early March.
“It had been a lifetime goal to own my own restaurant and sports bar,” he says. “I was really excited I didn’t have to jump into something I didn’t know what I was getting into.”
Coming soon
When I moved to Fort Wayne four years ago, I’d never even heard of DIY frozen yogurt shops. The idea was as foreign to me as I suspect it was to other Midwesterners outside the big cities.
Today, there are no fewer than four shops that let you design your own custom sundae (I’ll take the cake batter flavor topped with pulverized graham cracker, brownie bits and cheesecake chunks, thanks), and one more is on the horizon. Menchie’s will be the first national chain added to the DIY frozen yogurt landscape in Fort Wayne, at 6404 W. Jefferson Blvd., which is in the strip in front of Hungry Howie’s in Covington Plaza.
According to its website, Menchie’s has no-sugar-added, non-dairy and low-carb options, in addition to regular flavors that include Georgia peach, praline ’n cream, heath bar and piña colada tart.
Cooking class
Maple Leaf Farms in Leesburg is holding its first hands-on duck cooking class. The chefs will teach four- to eight-person groups how to make two duck dishes, both in an Asian-fusion style: duck salad and duck stir fry.
The class will run from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and costs $35 a person. If you reserve a spot for six to eight people, the price drops to $30 a person. Make your reservations by calling 574-453-4455 or stopping in at the Maple Leaf Farms World Headquarters, Duck, Down & Above (101 E. Church St., Leesburg).
Beer and wine events
•Starting Friday, tickets will go on sale for Aug. 4’s Brew Haven 2012, which calls itself Indiana’s premier craft beer festival, at a ticket release party at Trion Tavern (503 Broadway St., New Haven). The ticket release party has no cover charge and will include special prices on draft beers, not to mention one of three special brews from Three Floyds Brewing Company in the state.
Advance tickets for Brew Haven run $35. Bring cash to Trion, or purchase tickets at TrionTavern.com. Designated driver tickets, which include a meal and unlimited soft drinks, are $5.
Tickets come with unlimited samples to Brew Haven, a souvenir tasting glass and a meal. VIP packages, which run $60, include entry one hour earlier, a commemorative Brew Haven T-shirt and a Brew Haven glass-holding lanyard.
•Black Pine Animal Sanctuary (1426 W. 300 N., Albion) is holding something of a drink-and-meet-and-greet. From 7 to 9 p.m. June 23, Wine in the Pines will let you taste wines and wander through the park, all while meeting the animal caregivers.
The early birds tour starts at 5:30 p.m.
The fundraising event will run $25 if you get your tickets before June 23 and $30 at the door. Get tickets at BlackPine.org or call 636-7383.
Closings
Two chain restaurants in Fort Wayne have recently closed locations.
•The O’Charley’s restaurant on Lima Road has closed, leaving a lone Fort Wayne O’Charley’s on Illinois Road. A call placed to O’Charley’s corporate office was not returned.
•Hooter’s on Coliseum Boulevard has closed. A woman who answered the restaurant’s phone would not share why, and a call placed to the home office was not returned.
Blog
If you’ve wandered around The Journal Gazette blogs lately, you might have noticed an addition: The Dish blog is up and running. Check in at www.journalgazette.net/thedish throughout the week to get the latest in restaurant news. Drop by, leave a comment, come say “hi.”
