Tidbits: High Noon

While bars, restaurants, and cafes have closed their dining rooms due to the coronavirus pandemic, many, such as High Noon (and its "sister" establishment downstairs, Lucky Cat) have adapted. High Noon only offers beer and cocktails until further notice.

by Pamela Denney

March 31, 2020

8:00 AM

photo by justin fox burks

Editor's Note: This story was written before all bars, restaurants, and cafes closed their dining rooms due to the coronavirus pandemic. But many, such as High Noon (and its "sister" establishment downstairs, Lucky Cat) have adapted to the crisis. Lucky Cat offers a streamlined take-out menu with a family meal and curbside pickup. High Noon does not have a food menu at this time, but currently sells beer and cocktails to-go. Check the Lucky Cat website for full menus and prices.

A $6 classic martini with a citrus twist is a beautiful thing, but let’s hold that thought and focus first on High Noon’s vintage shuffleboard table in the recently opened Broad Avenue bar. Sturdy and confident with age, the table from the 1960s is so nostalgic that my friend, Victoria Lee, can’t help but reminisce about her father’s bar on the Genesee River. “I’d stand on two crates to play,” she says. “I loved that table.”

Chef Zach Nicholson’s relationship with shuffleboard is a little more circumvent. He spotted the table on Craigslist while searching for a jukebox, part of the reset for High Noon, located on the second floor of his popular restaurant, Lucky Cat Ramen. “The bar that was already there reminded us of a Western saloon, so that became the springboard for what we wanted to do with the space,” he explains.

Exposed brick walls and framed movie posters for spaghetti Westerns and their Japanese counterparts add nostalgia, as well, and foretell the trajectory of High Noon’s small plates. “We use some of the same flavors our customers expect, but combine them with a more Western feel,” Nicholson says. Here’s an example planned for the menu this month: A High Noon cheeseburger made with locally sourced beef on a house-made milk bread bun, a sweet black bean sauce condiment, and instead of lettuce, a spicy cabbage topping.

Other small plate options, priced from $8 to $12, parlay a similar verve. Yes, they are filling bar food, but they are so much more complex: Yakitori skewer specials that change every few weeks; beef short rib dumplings with black garlic and dashi shoyu; brisket, smoked in-house and snuggled with pickles inside a spongy boa bun; and must-have potatoes — first cooked confit and then fried — dressed with horseradish, beef fat Kewpie mayo, and togarashi, a chili pepper and sesame seed condiment commonplace in Japan.

Like the food, cocktails at High Noon don’t mimic what’s served downstairs. Instead of craft cocktails, the drinks are classic combinations like Old Fashioned, Mai Tai, and Tom Collins. And that martini I mentioned at the start of this story? It’s made with Broker’s Gin or vodka from Old Dominick Distillery, and I ordered two. So will you, if you stop by during happy hour Tuesday through Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.

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photo by Justin Fox Burks

Along with shuffleboard, look for live entertainment at High Noon, a bar on Broad Avenue that features classic cocktails from bartender Paul Gilliam and small plates from Chef Zach Nicholson. Asian-influenced poutine and beef short rib dumplings with dashi shoyu, a sweeter version of soy sauce, are on the current menu.

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