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Justin Fox Burks
At The Liquor Store, Bailey Biggers serves Salisbury steak and breakfast dishes like steak and eggs and pancakes the size of dinner plates. Baker Ali Rohrbacher’s scrumptious biscuits with house-made jam also come as breakfast sandwiches or smothered with shitake mushroom gravy. Handcrafted cocktails, bold laminate table tops, and light fixtures that float from the ceiling like luminescent orbs update the traditional diner with a big-city feel, thanks to owners Luis and Lisa Toro.
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At The Liquor Store, Bailey Biggers serves Salisbury steak and breakfast dishes like steak and eggs and pancakes the size of dinner plates. Baker Ali Rohrbacher’s scrumptious biscuits with house-made jam also come as breakfast sandwiches or smothered with shitake mushroom gravy. Handcrafted cocktails, bold laminate table tops, and light fixtures that float from the ceiling like luminescent orbs update the traditional diner with a big-city feel, thanks to owners Luis and Lisa Toro.
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At The Liquor Store, Bailey Biggers serves Salisbury steak and breakfast dishes like steak and eggs and pancakes the size of dinner plates. Baker Ali Rohrbacher’s scrumptious biscuits with house-made jam also come as breakfast sandwiches or smothered with shitake mushroom gravy. Handcrafted cocktails, bold laminate table tops, and light fixtures that float from the ceiling like luminescent orbs update the traditional diner with a big-city feel, thanks to owners Luis and Lisa Toro.
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At The Liquor Store, Bailey Biggers serves Salisbury steak and breakfast dishes like steak and eggs and pancakes the size of dinner plates. Baker Ali Rohrbacher’s scrumptious biscuits with house-made jam also come as breakfast sandwiches or smothered with shitake mushroom gravy. Handcrafted cocktails, bold laminate table tops, and light fixtures that float from the ceiling like luminescent orbs update the traditional diner with a big-city feel, thanks to owners Luis and Lisa Toro.
The Liquor Store: A unique bar and diner opens in a beloved storefront on Broad Avenue.
When Salisbury steak on a red-rimmed plate arrives at my table, I sit in a moment of reverie about TV dinners on the rare evenings growing up when my mother didn’t cook. Then I spin back to now — a weekend dinner at The Liquor Store on Broad — and dig in: mashed potatoes, warm mushroom gravy, pearl onions bobbing in a sea of green peas, and the patty itself made with a custom burger blend from Charlie’s Meat Market. “The blend has a little beef brisket which helps give it a wonderful rich texture,” explains owner Lisa Toro.
Toro and her husband, Luis Toro, who also own the nearby coffee shop, City & State, opened their diner and cocktail bar in mid-November. The menu’s flirt with retro dishes — chilled shrimp cocktail and a blended cheese ball served with Ritz crackers — was intentional. “These dishes felt reminiscent and fun,” Lisa says. “We said, let’s do it, but let’s do it better.”
In many ways, the restaurant is an amalgamation of influences. Alcohol-forward cocktails (try the smoky Mescal Old-Fashioned or $6 mimosas for weekend brunch) recognize the building’s earlier use as a neighborhood liquor store and its signature neon sign. And along with Lisa’s nostalgic food, the menu also includes Latin dishes important to Luis, who is a Venezuelan native. The restaurant’s pork, he says, tastes like Christmas. “When we celebrated Christmas, we didn’t eat turkey like here,” he says. “We ate pork shoulder low-roasted for 12 or 14 hours.”
At The Liquor Store, pork roasted with mojo sauce plays leading roles for lunch, dinner, and breakfast served all day. In a bowl of sweet potato hash, succulent chunks of pork cradle spinach, caramelized onions, and a soft fried egg. The Cuban — unequivocally, one of the best sandwiches in the city — stacks pork, ham, Swiss cheese, and dill pickles on a house-made Cuban loaf brushed with a little honey.
Baker Ali Rohrbacher’s many talents energize the diner’s menus from thick-cut sourdough for avocado toast to butter-rich biscuits for shitake mushroom gravy, creamy and flavorful and sausage-free. She creates desserts, as well, including tres leches cake with snowy whipped icing and pop tarts filled with almond dark chocolate and raspberry jam.
“We wanted to do something unique with a building we love,” Luis says. “So we created a concept that we hope builds community and brings attention to Broad.” Up next: a backyard with painted aqua picnic tables and an outdoor bar.
The Liquor Store, 2655 Broad Ave.
(901-405-5477) $-$$.
