Brick House opened just before St. Patrick’s Day in the former Blowin’ Smoke space on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
It’s a casual and upbeat spot. The interior has brightly painted walls and a rockabilly ambiance.
But I took advantage of the airy patio on my first visit. It was lunchtime on the official St. Patrick’s Day — the warm, relaxed Sunday following the manic parade day.
Several large parties were enjoying Brick House’s outdoor seating. It was obvious from the conversations that a number of diners were already making return trips to the newly opened spot.
The ribs seemed to be a particular draw.
In addition to the BBQ offerings, Brick House serves a variety of appetizers, sandwiches, salads and burgers. Special platters include a Brunswick stew pot pie, slow-smoked oxtails and fried chicken livers.
Refreshingly, pretty much everything is priced under $12.
I was tempted to try the MoonPie Burger — yes, it’s what you’d imagine — but settled for the Rockabilly Burger, which is deep-fried and topped with pimento cheese.
As I ate the burger and the excellent fries, I enjoyed sampling the nice variety of BBQ sauces that Brick House offers. The flavors were a lot more interesting than my typical mayo and ketchup.
Brick House is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
The restaurant is already promoting a variety of menu specials and hosting live music. Look for updates on Brick House’s busy Facebook page.
Brick House is part of a mini-surge in new restaurant openings downtown.
Blowin’ Smoke is making headway with the build-out of the former Sol space on Habersham Street. There’s activity at the former Sammy Green’s on Abercorn Street. Zunzi’s has announced a summer opening for a new location in the spot most recently occupied by Isaac’s on Drayton.
Other developments are in the works.
Cameron Carpenter opens the Savannah Music Festival in grand style
“Unquestionably, the South has one of the richest musical histories in the shortest amount of time as anywhere in the world,” organist Cameron Carpenter said Wednesday on the opening night of the Savannah Music Festival.
Head shaved into a modified mohawk and sporting a flamboyant jacket, Carpenter was speaking down into the sanctuary from the organ loft at Christ Church Episcopal on Johnson Square. He had already performed pieces by Liszt, Bach, Chopin and even Scott Joplin.
Soon, he would finish with some stunning improvisation, his feet occasionally flying along the pedals as if he were tap dancing.
In his remarks, Carpenter suggested there’s something distinctly American about such “crossing of musical boundaries.”
What a fitting start for the Savannah Music Festival, which has over the last decade routinely crossed genre lines, combined southern traditions and music from around the world and bridged the gap between old and new.
After all, there was the flamboyant Carpenter, the first organ soloist ever to receive a Grammy nomination, giving new voice to a classic instrument in one of Savannah’s most historic settings.
More good news on the jobs front
More good news last week from the Georgia Department of Labor.
I generally focus on the statistics for payroll jobs and for the unemployment rate, but both of those are estimates based on ongoing surveys.
So today let’s start by looking at the hard number of initial claims for unemployment insurance.
The number of Georgians making initial unemployment insurance claims in February was down 16.5 percent from February 2012. In the Savannah metro area, we saw a year-over-year decline of 15.8 percent.
The number of total claims is still higher than we’d like to see, but this is yet another data point that suggests steady improvement on the jobs front.
The Georgia Department of Labor estimates the Savannah metro area (Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties) added 3,600 jobs between February 2012 and February 2013. That’s an increase of 2.4 percent, about twice the rate needed to keep pace with population growth.
As I noted recently, we’re seeing healthy job gains despite stagnation in construction employment.
Residential investment is one of the most important leading indicators for the economy. There seems little doubt that housing construction has bottomed, so we’re likely to see jobs added in that sector as 2013 progresses.
We have not yet made up all the ground lost during the protracted and deep recession, much less added enough jobs to make up for population growth since employment peaked in 2008.
But the numbers bode well.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http://www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.