By Sue Poremba
I think it’s time to talk about my favorite restaurant. It’s the place we take out-of-town visitors for dinner. My husband and I have celebrated anniversaries and birthdays there.
This restaurant is
The Tavern in downtown State College.
It’s a cozy restaurant, with a Colonial feel to it. Lots of wood tables and chairs, with long benches along the wall, give it the feel of an old-fashioned tavern. But more intriguing is the art that covers the walls. The photos and paintings cover the history of
Penn State, State College and
Centre County. You can see what College Avenue looked like in the 1890s and read old news clips on Penn State football heroes.
But most people don’t go to a restaurant just to look at the pictures on the wall. The Tavern’s food is basic American fare that ranges from seafood dishes to steak to a pasta meal. What makes The Tavern a little different than other restaurants is that the menu changes. This can be good or bad, depending on your point of view, of course. You may not find your favorite meal on the day of your visit, but it is the opportunity to sample something new.
The best part of choosing the meal is choosing the side dishes. There are about a dozen salad and vegetable dishes, and you can choose as many as you want at no extra price to the meal. I remember one time being at the restaurant with a group of friends and butternut squash was one of the vegetable choices. I had never tried butternut squash before, so I figure this would be a good time to try it. If I didn’t like it, I could get another vegetable from the list. (Turns out, I loved it.)
If we go to the restaurant on a weeknight, we like to linger after the meal in the Adam’s Apple lounge. In the winter, there is often a roaring fire in the fireplace. Or we’ll sit in a table by the windows so we can watch the crowds walk by while sipping an Adam’s Apple special, the Original Sin.
It’s a popular spot for alumni and is especially busy on sports weekends. Weeknights are perfect for a leisurely dinner.