Drearest Darklings,
Greetings from Team Merry Shelley.
We just wanted to drop an itty bitty note to let you know what is happening on our end in terms of planning and goals. A lot of our operating decisions are being determined by the pandemic, your safety, and ours, and what we can reasonably manage with a one bat (Cedric) and one wolf (me) team.
This week we will be spending time on reconfiguring – and streamlining – our menu. We’re both thrilled with the positive feedback we have been receiving on our charcuterie, but ultimately need to create a menu that allows us both to be more present for you in the bar, and less so in the kitchen. While you are required to order a food item with your drink order for the duration of the pandemic, and while we also want to provide something tasty for you to nibble on, ultimately, at our, core, we are a goth bar. We are not a restaurant.
You walked through our door because you too are Goth. Or an Elder Goth, like us. Or maybe you’re a Punk Kid, or a Metalhead, or a Satanist (Hail Satan, and Happy Lupercalia!), or a Literary Nerd who appreciates the macabre. Or maybe you’re a little bit of everything, like me, or simply curious, seeking your people in a world that can often be the weird kind of weird, overwhelming, and hard. We are that place, for you. We will provide you the working class wines that surprise, the bourgeoisie beers that delight, and the music you have been pining to hear while you are out. We are your screen-free, dark, moody (with just enough light to read) haven. We want to be your home. We are not very good at being a kitchen. We are also a two-person team. With that in mind, we are simplifying the menu, and will reveal the new menu when we open next, this weekend. I promise that it’ll be good, it just won’t be the same.
We are also working on recreating our hours, to give you a little taste of what we hope to be post-COVID. For the rest of February, and all of March, we will be open Fridays and Saturdays, from 5pm to 9pm-ish. We will be honoring all Saturday reservations made for the month of March, but starting April 1st we’ll be moving to walk-in service only, and unless something changes drastically with the pandemic, we will slowly be pushing our hours back so we’re not only open later, but start a bit later as well. We’re not nocturnal for nothing, after all. We hope to eventually expand our open days from two days to four days a week, but that’ll come when it comes.
Thank you for being flexible with us, as we move toward opening fully in the middle of a pandemic. In order to be open at all, we need to do what we must. Times are not normal, and while we would never wish for normalcy, we wouldn’t mind a little bit of sanity. Our version of sanity, anyway.
We love you, our fellow darklings, for without you, we’re drifting. xo
-Karma