Company Pub and Kitchen offers English, California fare
By Peijean Tsai
One of Poway’s newest restaurants offers an introduction to the gastropub trend, with its bistro-style menu, craft beers and drinks in a cozy hangout setting.
Company Pub and Kitchen at 13670 Poway Road, features an Anglo-American menu with both traditional English pub fare and California cuisine. The local neighborhood eatery was opened by the Scripps Ranch couple Peter Green and Tansy Sheehy, who originally are from Northern England but met in San Diego.
“The whole ‘gastropub’ concept is what every neighborhood deserves… it straddles the line between a bar and a restaurant,” said Green, who said Company Pub and Kitchen is a place where locals can meet up and socialize with friends while enjoying quality food at affordable prices. The business name refers both to the company a person keeps at work and at play, he added.
In the California culinary scene, gastropubs have grown in popularity in the last several years. The term “gastropub” refers to the London movement started in the 1990s that reinvents the traditional pub with upscale cuisine.
Company Pub and Kitchen offers a full bar with bottled and tap beers, cocktails, and wine. San Diego and California craft beers include Green Flash Brewing Company, Stone Brewing Company and Karl Strauss Brewing Company. The Snake Bite and Blue Collar Black Velvet are drinks that blend beer with hard apple cider.
The food is a mix of recipes, including ones designed after actual menus sent from family members who own pubs back in England. Those who enjoy dishes by celebrity TV chefs Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver will like Company Pub and Kitchen’s menu, Green said.
Menu items include English favorites, such as fish and chips (English-style fries) for $10, sausage and mash ($11), braised lamb, and scullery gravy. Salads ($6 to $7), sandwiches ($7 to $10) and burgers are also popular. Spirits are incorporated into several entrees, such as beer-braised sausages, rib eye steak with whiskey bacon mushroom sauce, and the berry champagne salad.
“It’s very much a menu put together by committee: what we like, what customers have asked for,” Green said.
The restaurant offers Happy Hour discounts Monday through Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. There are $4 drinks and $2 off Pub Bites menu selections, including appetizers such as mussels mouclade, lamb lollipops, southwestern shrimp, and more. On Labor Day, Happy Hour food and drink discounts will be offered all day.
The kitchen is managed by Siriaco Alonzo, whose culinary experience includes several years at the now-closed Poway bistro House on the Hill.
The dining room seats approximately 100, and outdoor patio dining is dog-friendly.
Green and Sheehy, who became engaged shortly after Company Pub and Kitchen’s June 30 opening, decided to open an independently owned and operated eatery in Poway because they felt the area could use more restaurants.
“We recognized there are lots of chains but not a lot of choices for anything different,” said Sheehy.
With its open industrial ceilings and modern elements, Company Pub and Kitchen’s unique ambiance is an expression of urban design but also an example of recycling and repurposing materials. Five months were spent on construction and refurbishment to transform what was previously the Miami Grille restaurant. The revamped dining room features custom tabletops made from wood pallets. The light fittings over the bar are made with repurposed wine bottles by a local glass artist.
Keeping local was also important in setting up the eatery. Seats were reupholstered locally. Produce is purchased from the Poway Farmers Market and meat from Bisher’s Quality Meats, a Poway butcher shop. Nearly all of the 18 employees hired are from Poway and North County. Green said they also are interested in decorating with local art.
Green previously owned the Bonny Lad in Del Mar, a traditional English pub in the 1990s. He then worked for Planet Hollywood and shifted into event planning, before returning to the restaurant business.
Contact the restaurant at 858-668-3365.
