Restaurants time openings with return of college students

Several restaurants under development downtown are planning to open shortly before mid-August when thousands of college students return to school in 
Columbia.

Travis Tucker, owner of Bleu, said construction on the restaurant should be finished by the end of July. Bleu, located adjacent to the Tiger Hotel on 8th Street, will open and take reservations before school starts in mid-August, but will save a grand opening party for September.

A few blocks up the street from Bleu, a restaurant, bar and lounge called Room 38 will open in early August. Room 38 is located on the corner of Walnut and 8th Street in the space formerly occupied by Otto’s Bar. The address is 38 N. Eighth Street, the basis for the name.

Owner Billy Giordano, the former general manager of Forge and Vine, said he wanted something simple to go with the contemporary design, “using real clean lines.” “We are definitely doing an upscale restaurant and bar and lounge so we didn’t want the name to be one or the other but a little bit of both,” he said. “I probably went through 100 different names before I decided on this simple one.”

Tapas (TAH-pahs, not to be confused with TOP-less) are popular throughout
Spain in bars and restaurants. They are, according to the epicurious.com dictionary, appetizers but also can form the basis for an entire meal and can range from simple items, such as olives or cubes of ham and cheese, to more elaborte preparations like cold omelets, snails in a spicy sauce, stuffed peppers and miniature sandwiches.

Replacing Village Wine & Cheese on the corner of Broadway and Tenth Street is Kim Perry’s Mississippi Fish Shack, previously located in Booneville. Inside the fish shack, Columbians will get a taste of authentic Mississippi catfish, frog legs and traditional Southern gumbo when it opens in mid-July. Originally slated to open June 1, Perry said city compliance issues delayed the original date. Inside the dining area, a bar, remaining from its predecessor, Village Wine & Cheese, will receive an old-fashioned renovation to transform it into a soda fountain where Perry plans to serve ice cream and banana splits.

Quinton’s and Tonic, established bars on Ninth Street, will add a roof-top patio above their current locations for patrons to gather below the night sky. A city ordinance issue delayed construction on the patio. Work is now underway and expected to be complete by September, said owner Michael McClung.