Visiting Deagan's Kitchen & Bar

While downtown Lakewood, Ohio might not be a flexing metropolitan hub there are plenty of quality, unique and affordable dining options: Alladins, Pacers, Melt, Souper Market, Chipotle, a brand spanking new Panera, Einstein Bro's, The Root Cafe, Dave's Cosmic, and I'll even throw in Boston Market, Burger King, and Taco Bell just to bulk up the list. The new kid on the block is Deagan's Kitchen & Bar. Taking up the old digs of the oft mentioned Crazy Rita's and short lived Cleats the people behind Deagans have revamped what was the red headed stepchild of a kitsch Mexican come sports bar space with great success. Pounding shots of tequila then getting a roll of paper towels with my wings was nice, but I'm a bit older now, a bit smarter, wiser, and more sophisticated and so is Deagan's K&B

.I visited during a week-day lunch service with a rather large group of around 15 people including 3 children. One of which was only 9 days old. Babies are so cute, and luckily for us she was very quiet too. The server was great with the group as we all arrived independently over a 20 minute span, and by no means was the place empty! Our server quite easily could have got an attitude and been salty with us as a whole, but instead we were treated very, very well with a visit from both the chef and the owner. It is amazing how good service can slip below the radar when you dine out, but we didn't even have good service… I would call this excellent service!

Deagan's K&B is a self proclaimed gastropub. The idea of beer and food paired together occurred about 5 minutes after the first beer was made so it's not unique, but what Deagan's brings to the table is a great selection of beers and a superb menu. There is a definition of 'gastropub' on the chalk board near the front door; you'll see it right next to the specials and the seasonal beer selections. I just dig the chalk boards. Chalk boards are way cooler than the wholesome 'I picked this font out special' sheet of ream paper with a mix match of ingredients most likely miss spelled with someone else’s greasy fingerprints on it "Daily Specials" sheet.There is a lot of cross over between the lunch and dinner menus. I totally appreciate this and think it is a very wise business discussion. Then again there is just enough difference that exists both a lunch and dinner experiences are available. Along with the afore mentioned daily specials.

I had two glasses of water, a heifwiezen, and the house salad. To me a house salad doesn't have avocado, hearts of palm, tomatoes, mushrooms and shallot vinaigrette, but Deagan's does. What a great salad. Everyone was very happy with their food. Even the kids couldn't eat enough. We were warned that the mac&cheese wasn't up to par by one of the tables guests who had been to Deagan's before yet the description was so tempting another in the party went for it and she was pleased. Around the table we had the reuben, burger, chicken and waffles, grilled cheese and vegan chili. Duck confit mac&cheese, I mean are you kidding me? On this day everyone walked away full and happy.

The space is sparse yet occupied. There are a few painting, and very interesting ones at that. Just enough to keep your eye occupied when the child across from you sticks a fork in his mouth and you just hope he doesn't poke out a tooth and by no means do you want to be held responsible. The walls are covered with recovered barn shingles as I understand along with the exposed ceiling and steel beams the room has a lot of texture. The bathrooms, the most overlooked rooms that we tend not to speak about were just amazing! The bar area is a full circle centered around a few giant flat screen TVs’so you can have your sports and eat lunch too.

I just loved my Deagan's experience. On the flip side I can't leave a table un-leveled and unfortunately I was the culprit of just that. I sat at a split in the four tables put together and one was wholly and annoyingly unlevel. Since they were most likely pushed together at the last moment I'll give it a pass and try the amazingly sounding duck confit mac&cheese upon my next visit.