Openings

Bull Valley Roadhouse Opens in Port Costa With Cocktails from Erik Adkins

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Not only is there only about one block to this town, you can’t miss the place because of the golden bull.

Let’s start by saying Port Costa is awesome. If you haven’t been to the tiny East Bay town, once a ferry landing and wheat loading point north of Crockett, south of Martinez that backs up to the train tracks along the Sacramento River Delta, you really need to make the trip. In its brief heyday in the late 1800s as a wheat shipping port, it was obviously a one-whorehouse, one-saloon town, and you can still kind of tell. The town saloon, now a popular biker destination called The Warehouse Café, is great in and of itself. But now they have a new restaurant, The Bull Valley Roadhouse, which is a reincarnation of the former Bull Valley Restaurant, but dressed in fancier clothes.

As Diablo Dish reports, the people behind the makeover are “the same folks that took over the next door Burlington Hotel,” and they’ve brought in San Francisco bar star Erik Adkins of The Slanted Door to do the cocktail program. It will be focused on pre-Prohibition era American classics, such as the Bee’s Knees (gin, lemon, and local wildflower honey).

The food menu, a sample version of which you can see here, is centered on American tavern fare with gourmet touches. For example, there’s prime rib with creamed spinach and gruyere popovers; baked oysters with harissa butter; salt cod brandade; bone marrow with salsa verde; and papardelle with pork sugo. It’s the work of chef David Williams, with consulting by Slanted Door chef Justine Kelly.

The cozy space, with a beautiful, original back bar, velvet upholstered bar stools, and cafe chairs, is definitely fit for a romantic getaway, and luckily there’s a hotel next door so you don’t have to do the windy drive back after a few cocktails.

They’ve actually been softly open to locals for a couple of weeks, and because they’re actually truly off the beaten path, they’ve managed to keep it a secret until their official opening, which is tomorrow, November 1.

Weekly Dish [Diablo]

Bull Valley Roadhouse Opens in Port Costa With Cocktails from Erik Adkins