After spending the last many weeks evaluating purveyors of local sustainable food, meeting with the president of the two local breweries and interviewing city residents; one thing is for certain; Roswell needs The Tap just like I needed Roswell.
I found this out nearly 25 years ago when I visited Roswell in 1986 to spend New Years eve with my girlfriend of 3 months (the former Tracey Papera). At that time, we gallivanted through Atlanta, Virginia Highlands and Roswell in a friends BMW sampling food, cocktails and late nights as a 19 year old sophomore in college. I thought I had been transported to another world. Pittsburgh, and more importantly the North Side, had provided me with a rock solid neighborhood, a huge family and dozens of friends. Parties were in a field with a keg, make out sessions happened usually in a car on any deserted alley (or many times behind Corleones Pizza) and a big weekend was driving to Conneaut Lake Park or going to Southside (pronounced "sa-side") and I would not trade those memories for the world. As the son of a disabled steel worker and a mom who worked countless jobs...I had not experienced an upper class suburb and certainly had never ridden in a BMW. Needless to say, I was SOLD! Not on the wealth but on the opportunity, the privileges and the life that I wanted for myself and for the family that I knew I would have.
As i have grown older (not old just older), I have matured in many ways and in many ways I have not! Parties are now at my house, make out sessions happen anytime we are without the kids, and a big weekend is a limo out or a flight to South Beach. As I have "grown", so too has Roswell.
In the late 90's, Roswell was always a great place to drive through while showing friends and family from Pittsburgh where I lived because of the charm and elegance of Canton street. Today, coming north on Roswell road across the Chattahoochee River, Roswell begins. Amalfi is at the top of the hill on the left....best Italian food this side of Tuscany and Sal the bartender makes a killer martini and exudes just enough mafia attitude to make me feel dangerous. Thousand Hills Coffee, Relish, Pastis, Roux, Ceviche, Red Salt, Rice, Indigo and of course Diesel, Greenwoods and the Swallow at the Hallow provide Roswellians with good food and drink at moderate prices.
What we lack in Roswell is a neighborhood restaurant and bar for locals...a place that is By the People and For the People as Abraham Lincoln stated in his address at Gettysburg. American food (and in many cases Georgia grown ingredients) for people who appreciate America and appreciate the 5 O'clock Happy Hour, the food "you haven't had since you were a kid", and a bartender who knows what you like and will probably have one with you. The Roswell Tap is morphing into that very place...slowly but most surely!
The fall is drawing near and football and cool nights are just weeks away and so is The Tap. Over the coming weeks, as you see T-shirts, menus, (and two great looking guys out recruiting waitresses) and hear the whispers about (said in a whisper) "a place where time stood still....when you could let the kids go out and play without worry, when people said hello and asked how you were, and were genuinely interested in your answer, when the keys were always in the car and a place where your money can be left on the bar...Welcome my friends to The Roswell Tap!
