Life after Bistro

Chuck Adcock, former manager of Michael’s Bistro and Tap House, tells me now, eight months after he quit the place in June, that he’s not sure who’s running it these days. Despite having spent thirteen years of his life there—ten as head chef and manager—Adcock seems to be keeping his distance from the Bistro, which has changed drastically since he and the rest of the staff walked out in June due to a rift between him and the co-owner, the late Michael Crafaik. Now he has plenty of room for independence: two weeks ago, Adcock, along with former bistro employees Sean Chandler and Bob Dorsey, opened the 12th Street Tap House, a new bar and restaurant that might finally replace a certain void on the Corner that has been felt ever since the Bistro underwent its transformation in June.

Something changed for good during that week when the Bistro was closed, a week when my friends and I stood outside on hot, restless nights and gazed up at the empty outdoor seating, peered at signs scribbled in highlighter that were posted on the boarded-up door, promising Michael’s would reopen the next day—only to have that day pushed back without explanation. And when the Bistro did reopen, we visited eagerly, only to find it changed from the place it once was. I remember ordering a Black Velvet—a delicious Michael’s staple, Guinness mixed evenly with cider—and was asked to tell an unfamiliar waitress what it was. Then the new staff trespassed against us by painting over the wine-stain red walls with a cheerier grapefruit color, and then again when they started keeping the lights on bright during late-night, and then worse yet by flicking those lights off and on at us when they wanted us to leave—at the early hour of midnight.

I stopped seeing regulars there and wondered why I was holding out. My friends and I squinted under the lights and sipped our beers uncertainly for the rest of the summer and fall, kept an eye on the local news, and hoped for the day the place would turn itself around and remember what it was: a moody den for grad students and distinguished under-grad, those who did not want to brush up against the Greek crowd and down rail drinks at "'80s night” or whatever at Three or the Biltmore, but who might rather ruminate, sip dark, bitter beers, and chiiilll.

“I haven’t gone since I left in June,” Adcock says to me during our conversation over the phone last week, “so I don’t really have an opinion on how it’s being run.” He is aware, surely, from having experienced the separation from his partner, Crafaik, who committed suicide last December after his long battle with bi-polar disorder, and from things he’s heard now, “off the street.”

“[Crafaik’s] family is sort of letting it run itself. It really doesn’t have anybody who really knew the place like I did or any of the old employees [did].” According to Adcock, that’s the main reason the place doesn’t feel the same. Previously, he says, “the employees loved it there. They loved the beer and the food and it felt like a big family.” Adcock has brought much of this family to the 12th Street Tap House—twelve employees, along with a familiar food menu (long live the Bistro’s bison burger) and a long list of Belgian beers, which are served in four-dollar 20 oz. glasses.

When you go the 12th Street Tap House, which is located at Northern Exposure’s old spot, just off the intersection of West Main Street and Jefferson Park Avenue, its immediate familiarity causes a surreal sensation for those who remember the vintage Michael’s. The lights are low; the wooden booths and green walls give the room a dark feel. A place where you can easily smoke inside. The waitstaff is composed entirely of familiar faces—people who seem borne from the woodwork of such bars, seemingly existing only in these environments, where their knowledge of good beers flows like the tap. The stereo plays indie predictables. I did not expect what an odd pleasure it would be to drink a beer to Neutral Milk Hotel’s most depressing “Oh Comely” and feel just right. “I feel like crying,” I said to my roommates—and so we toasted.

“I liked that casually social vibe that the Bistro had,” Adcock says when I ask him whether the Tap House was meant to recreate the old Michael’s. Of course, there are differences—the Tap House is bigger; something about the large windows overlooking West Main Street in the front section give it an airy, open feeling that encourages sprawling crowds, I think, whether Adcock wants them or not.

“I’m not encouraging a giant party,” Adcock says. “I’m not really looking for fraternity guys trashing the place.” Normally, of course, this is the goal of any bar on the Corner—to offer cheap pitchers and rails in the hopes of gaining a certain clientele on the weekends. But Adcock is different in that respect, thankfully, and is happy to have regained his low-key regulars at the Tap House, hopeful still that some of the previous Bistro-goers, as well as locals who live downtown, might not keep their distance from the Corner and migrate his way.

“I liked that clientele better than lots of undergrads. I’d rather have grad students,” he says, noting that his venue is more suited for a “more mature” crowd. If more mature means enjoying good beer and hanging out, then I’m sure the Tap House will be attractive to many. For those of us at U.Va. who had been holding out for Michael’s to revert to its old image, at least we know now, for sure, that that will never happen. Whatever we were looking for, we can probably find it at the 12th Street Tap House.

The 12th Street Tap House is open late nights every day except Sunday. Lunch Mon-Sat. and all-day Brunch on Sundays. Jazz on Tuesdays, and more local music at least twice a week. Valentine’s Day specials on the 14th, and a beer dinner with Stone Brewery expected on the 18th.