Adam Goodwin, chef at Little Tap House, dribbles garlic scape chimichurri on steak frites. Our critic says the dish is a highlight among the menu’s new items. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer If “cursed real estate” is a benighted location where any bar or restaurant is doomed to fail, then shouldn’t we also expect there to be “charmed real estate”? In Chicago, a long time ago, I used to pick up shifts waiting tables at a diner located on just such a plot.
The food was nothing special, the décor dated and grimy, and the service ...
well, unless you enjoy being sniped at by Polish grandmothers of a certain age, was pretty abysmal. But the restaurant was sited on the same block as a busy subway station and within walking distance of Wrigley Field, so it drew crowds, day and night. According to Josep, the crotchety, chain-smoking owner, it had been that way for decades, despite the sabotaging efforts of the managers and most of the staff.
And the people who bought the building from him? They are still in business, 30 years later. Server Lily Seybold delivers a beer to a table in the dining room at Little Tap House. The place is “almost an institution,” according to new co-owner and head chef Adam Goodwin.
Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer Closer to home, I’d like to make the case that 106 High St. in Portland is similarly charmed. With the exception of an ill-conceived tapas restaurant that lasted just a few months in 2012, there have been only two residents on th.
