Public School 612

The food in middle school's notoriously bad, what with taco Tuesdays, taco Thursdays...and taco Fri -- damn, what is this, a charter school?! Making school food just as good as those magical charters, Public School 612.

Opening today downtown, PS 612's a classic gastropub vaguely themed around the idea of (actually good, upscaled) middle-school grub w/ a massive tiled bar, high-top common tables, and a menu that looks like a grade-school composition notebook, all from the guys behind (and connected to) The Daily Grill, also the name of Paul Wall's Tumblr blog. Sustenance is comfortably familiar, w/ mostly shareable offerings ranging from Dragoon's Irish Stout short ribs w/ Yukon mash & caramelized onion au jus, to fried chicken w/ mustard BBQ sauce & handcut fries, to a Colorado lamb burger w/ arugula, brie, and tomato cranberry jam, which's weird, as most jams associated with Colorado are made with String Cheese. Beer selection is from one of the The Beer Chicks duo, w/ 30+ draughts, bottles, & cans including Quebec's wheaty Unibroue, the local smokey Eagle Rock Solidarity, and Allagash Curioux, which is described as having "hints of wood", though if you drink too much, even that's probably not an option.

Of course, they also have a full booze menu (w/ classics like Old Fashioneds and a Hendrick's Gimlet), and, if the business takes off, they're considering expanding to other locations, which can't come soon enough, considering Fletcher Walker in Westwood just got rid of tater tots!