New restaurant and bar Rockford Roadhouse offers a cozy atmosphere for customers that features simple yet elevated dishes and drinks. The Rockford restaurant opened its doors to the public for a soft opening on March 19.
Co-owners Mitchell Sherman and Jay Silverness are from the west metro area and have worked together in the restaurant and bar industry for over 10 years. The co-owners wanted to bring something unique to Rockford and the surrounding areas, which they view as growing communities.
“We have people that are already three to five times a week type visits - so fairly regular, regulars. It’s a lot of Rockford residents but it’s also a little bit from surrounding areas so we’re seeing people from Buffalo, Loretto, and Medina. Kind of all over the cities surrounding us as well,” Sherman said.
The owners wanted the restaurant to be warm and inviting with a rustic feel, blending rustic and modern styles. According to Sherman, he and Silverness are hands-on co-owners and came up with the menu items through some influences from restaurant and bar concepts they’ve done before, as well as completely fresh ideas.
“Food specifically we’re a scratch kitchen, we have a ton of unique sauces that we’ve created ourselves from our remoulade that we put on the fish sandwich, to our ‘border sauce’ which is our main house sauce. We have a spicy ranch, we got corn dip. We have a bunch of different homemade sauces, things for toppings, but everything is scratch, made in-house. We don’t have any proprietary items or anything that’s just a heat and serve,” Sherman said.
The meat for the pastrami sandwich is hand-cut and Rockford Roadhouse’s wings are chargrilled to sear the sauce onto them. The menu features classic bar foods, with burgers that are sourced from the Midwest, but also some unique aspects, such as a ceviche appetizer.
Sherman and Silverness garnered the inspiration for Rockford Roadhouse’s hand-crafted cocktail recipes through what they enjoy drinking, including lots of bourbon and whiskey cocktails, along with some gin and tequila drinks. They worked hard to select cocktail ingredients that are fresh along with some more rare brands of liquor.
Seasonally, Rockford Roadhouse will continue to switch up the drink menu items as well.
“It’s casual, but it can also be a really nice date night for a couple late night trying to grab some good food and they maybe don’t want to go all the way into some other area where there’s a little bit more fine dining,” Sherman said. “This kind of hits a little bit of both of them, it doesn’t make you feel you’re not dressed up appropriately if you walk in, in jeans and a t-shirt. You can also find some couples dressed up and having a fun date night and they feel just as comfortable.”
They’re currently in the process of planning out a patio space now that the weather will be warming up soon. Sherman and Silverness want to expand the patio area and create the same type of atmosphere as the interior with bistro lighting, foliage and possibly a firepit.
The patio will also be dog-friendly. Although Rockford Roadhouse is still very new, they hope to host events outside in the summer such as a block party or other summer activities and have ideas for future menu items.
“In the next month or two I think we’re going to start moving into probably adding on some handmade pizzas, definitely going to do some more weekly, daily and monthly specials. So I know we are going to be rolling out a burger and cocktail of the month program,” Sherman said.
They also would like to add some smoked meats in the summer as well and may serve breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays in the future. Rockford Roadhouse has a catering menu on the way, so they’ll be able to offer off-site catering for private events.
To learn more about Rockford Roadhouse or to order food online, go to therockfordroadhouse.com
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