Mohawk Bend to open in Echo Park soon, “very soon”

You may have noticed yesterday (hopefully you didn’t drive all the way from the West side) that despite reports from various news sources, Mohawk Bend did not open its doors yesterday. But last week we did get a sneak peak at the space, the food, and the ever so delicious booze at a pre-opening party for press and friends.

Owner Tony Yanow has had great success with Tony’s Darts Away in Burbank – with an extensive and really great beer list paired with an equally delicious vegan and non-vegan bar fare. He’s clearly doing something right, because Mohawk Bend is impressive. Plus it really helps that he’s a really nice guy, has an equally awesome family, and has done a great job with the former Ramona Theater after over 20 years of collecting dust.

Spacecraft Group designed the interior of the building (the exterior is protected by historical guidelines), telling the crowd at the pre-opening party that they were inspired by a ’70s bar vibe, hence the vintage neon bar signs decorating the second story of the large main room. Polished concrete floors, exposed brick (the formal dining room is all original), a two-story glass wall, and lacquered panels of wood are features of the recreated space.

Four main sections make up the 6,000 square foot space, which we wrote about last month:

• A non-smoking outdoor patio is the first space you’ll notice (where you would, for instance, buy your movie tickets when it was a theater). It will be treated almost like a lounge area with cocktailers.
• The Quad is just past the hostess station, where two- and four-tops plus booths (totaling 48 seats) will occupy the space. It’s a seat yourself deal, and while you can order at the bar there will be cocktailers as well.
• There’s this really cool concrete community table with high-top seating as you move into further down into the pub/bar area (they had to build it right there, it’s so bulky). Along the right side is the row of bar stools facing a total of 72 taps for beer and six taps for wines. With a focus on California/local brews, wines, and even spirits, they’ll also be making their own juices and even sodas.
• Along the left side are also high-top seats, this section facing an open kitchen where you can watch the chefs in action. There’s the “Cadillac of pizza ovens” along with multiple stations – since they will be offering a variety of vegan dishes, they’ve actually duplicated stations so that vegan meals are prepared separately from meat dishes. That means they have two of each: cold tops, fryers, griddles and pizza stations.

Throughout the pre-opening, we sampled a variety of vegan and non-vegan food like pizzas, snacks, salads, fish ‘n chips, artichokes (mmmm), crab spring rolls (my fave) and beer – OH the beer is a reason to go on its own!

Also in my last article, I did mention that Keith the bar manager would seek out some California agave spirits for some margarita-style cocktails, and while they haven’t found one yet worthy of stocking behind the bar, there are plenty of traditional and signature cocktails on the bar menu. If you’re not into the spirits, here’s the low-down of what’s on tap:

• Of the 72 taps, 67 are California-only brews
• 35 are permanent handles and 32 will rotate
• Every month they will feature one out-of-state brewer, and will host a kick-off event with the brewer on hand
• Six taps are wine kegs, and will rotate like the beers

So now that we’ve made your mouth water a little bit – when do they open? No-one at the pre-opening party would give it up, and if you’ve ever work int he restaurant business you’d understand why. Once they work out all the kinks, hopefully in the next few days or a couple of weeks, the doors will be open and you can all give it a try! Let us know what you think.