Your new mac-'n-cheese tutor

Grade school was a simpler time, when your only real worries were whether your mom cut your crusts off, and if Arnold Schwarzenegger could use his pet ferret to protect you from your drug-dealing, witness-murdering father. For a resto that'll remind you of that simpler time without potentially giving you a tumor, hit Homeroom, opening Tuesday.

Out to perfect one of man's greatest foodstuffs, Homeroom is a mac-'n-cheese joint from two first-time restaurateurs decked out with a school-tastic interior that includes wood tables built from salvaged Sequoia High football bleachers, a 15-drawer UC Berkeley card catalog for storing your customer loyalty card (buy 10 macs, get the 11th free!), and a sweet chalkboard map of CA with city-referencing doodles, like a border crossing sign in San Diego, or a fat joint in Humboldt (so...a Sizzler?). Ten epic, creamy-or-baked mac-'n-cheeses grace the menu (which you can pick up inside the Pigs in Space Muppets lunch pail by the door), including Trailer Mac (cheddar, Prather Ranch hot dog, crushed potato chips), Spicy Mac (firehouse jack cheese w/ smoky Marash pepper) and chorizo/chipotle pepper-topped Mexican Mac, who started his career by pummeling Vaso Jose. You can wash down all 10 mains -- or one of six sweet options like homemade Oreos -- with any of their five beers on tap (Moylan's, Drake's, Racer, Lagunitas, Old Rasputin) served in jars, 14 wines (seven by the glass, seven bottled), or just try the "Bloat" -- a beer float made with ice cream from Three Twins, who damn well better be Doug Drabek, Kirby Puckett, and Kent Hrbek.

There are also monthly beer/mac pairings in the works, plus appearances scheduled for a mobile Popsicle cart that'll pop-up alongside their 15 sidewalk seats this summer and dish out homemade, booze-filled "ice pops" -- which is pretty much exactly what The Terminator did to long haired Richard Tyson.