It’s been nearly two years in the making, but Patrick Andrews will soon be an owner of a restaurant.
The Green Room Bistro and Juice Bar on Carlisle’s West High Street is expected to open in the spring and will have a menu to fit all tastes, Andrews said.
But there’s one thing it won’t have, he said — Pepsi or Coke brand sodas.
Instead, the restaurant will offer all-natural sodas from the New Jersey-based Boylan Bottling Company. The restaurant will also boast juices that will be made on site as well as organic teas and French-pressed coffees.
“I really think there’s an opportunity to give people something different to drink,” Andrews said.
A staple menu of juices will likely be available daily, he added, while others will be special items. On the food side of the menu, the restaurant will have dishes ranging from hamburgers to filet mignon.
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As an example, Andrews said, the filet mignon will come in two portion sizes and will be priced appropriately.
Most, if not all the foods, will be made from local all-natural ingredients, he added.
“The menu will be flexible,” Andrews said.
Andrews described the restaurant as “casual fine dining.”
Location, location, location
Situated beside the Carlisle Theatre in what was once Tony’s Pastry Shop & Bakery, the Green Room is in an ideal location to draw in the theater crowd, Andrews said.
The Carlisle Theatre board voted Monday to lease the space to Andrews, said Rick Rovegno, the board president.
“It fits in with the long-term strategy the theater will take,” he said.
Down the road, Rovegno said, the restaurant could host movie discussion groups.
Peering through the window of Tony’s, pizza boxes were still neatly stacked on a shelf behind the counter just below a menu board that lists the various pastries and pizzas. A special board sat on the floor and still had a list of specials inked on it by a marker.
Though the place looks like a traditional pizzeria now, Andrews said it’ll look totally different once renovations are completed.
“It’s not going to look like it does,” he said.
The restaurant will have more of a bistro feel, Andrew said, and will have little tables that are all the same height that can be easily be pushed together to make larger tables. He declined to reveal the cost for renovations.
The location of the Green Room will also play to the people — Dickinson College students, professionals and those doing business downtown — who walk along High Street almost daily, said Glenn White, main street manager with the Downtown Carlisle Association.
“It’s going to be a giant anchor for the West High Street area,” he said.
Dessert anyone?
Even if those people who walk past opt for dinner elsewhere, Andrews said he hopes to entice them to the Green Room for dessert. The restaurant will offer traditional desserts as well as a dessert that originates from the Brittany region of France — crepes.
Andrews also plans to make his own ice cream for the restaurant and, in the future, will venture into making breads.
The Green Room’s kitchen will be manned by Jason Turner, a longtime friend of Andrews and a co-owner of the venture.
When it opens, planned for March 15, Andrews said the restaurant will have lunch and dinner hours Tuesday through Saturday.
But as things roll along, he added, the Green Room could be open seven days a week and would likely offer Sunday brunch.
Though the juice bar and the natural ingredients found in the foods and drinks makes the restaurant sound like a health food spot, Andrews said it won’t go that far.
“We want to be a healthy restaurant but we don’t want to be a health restaurant,” he said.