Epilogue Kitchen and Cocktails

04/16/2025

Cheesesteaks and tasty jams!! Come on out this Saturday. The weather is gonna be lovely, the cheesesteaks are gonna be cheesy, and the music is gonna be groovy!

We’ll start food and drink specials at 5, music starts at 7.

Cheers everyone, see ya this week!

P.S. a lil collaborative shandy between us and .coffee will be available on Saturday as well 😉

11/05/2024

10/31/2024

Sign says it all. Closed today, because we’ve been running full steam at half crew for a while now, and we only had two reservations for the night. Restaurants are a constant dance of customer and cost, and tonight wasn’t penciling out to be worth it, so we’re turning a negative positive and getting some rest. See y’all in November, happy halloween!

10/21/2024

This is easily the most important election in my voting lifetime. Everything that you may hold dear as a compassionate and contributing human is at stake. We are so fortunate in Oregon to have the easiest path to making our voice heard. Get your ballot and your candidate information packet, make informed choices, and do your part.
If you are able to vote and choose not to, you do not have any valid claim to engage in dissent.
If you believe that a vote for one party is the same as a vote for the other, you are being willfully ignorant and obtuse. Do not let an unobtainable quest for a mythical perfect candidate let us slide into christofascism.

Vote, people. Like your lives and the lives of the people you love depend on it.

Also, write in Chris Hoy for mayor. Again, if you think that Chris and Julie are the same, you are ignoring a lot of easily found information. Julie is not a leader, she is a figurehead for local capitalist interests.

10/04/2024

In honor of the rain and flannel season, heres one of the 4 pictures i actually like of myself. You’ll catch me on the line a lot the next few months, swing by and say hello!

If you come by Saturday (and maybe Sunday, i’ll update you later) you can say hi and get one of our most beloved specials. The Walleye Fish Fry returns this weekend, 10/5! Pistachio and panko crusted walleye filets, fried to golden brown, with a pile of old bay seasoned fries and our coleslaw. It is comfort food with an eye towards artistic expression, a perfect embodiment of our philosophy here. Walleye is at the top of the freshwater fish hierarchy and we do it right.
We’re also running $9 Wisco Old Fashioneds and $2 Miller Lites, all while supplies last.
We’ll see ya soon!

*again, this is for Saturday, not Friday. Friday is our regular lovely menu and selves.

10/03/2024

Thursdays are the day we appreciate education, in all its forms. Way back when, I used to read to y’all on Thursday nights. It is my ambition to bring that back, at some point, when we’re whole again. For now, bring your teacher/student/staff selves down to the restaurant and enjoy 20% off your ticket, all dinner service on Thursdays 💚.

Did you know that our Library Of Black Excellence is the whole reason we moved into a bigger space? I felt like the resource we are able to provide with a functional library was better suited to more than a small shelf. So now, it occupies a room. There is something soothing and stimulating about eating amidst the stacks. Our books are not decoration. They occupy a space for love and usage. Grab a book and read a chapter while you have dinner. Read out loud to your table. Check them out and take them home! Love them as we love them, use them as we use them. And don’t forget to get your “That’s Lit!” Card, where after you read 5 books, you get a meal on us!

Cheers, everyone. And remember, it doesn’t matter what or how you read. Just open that book 📖

09/30/2024

Me and my main man Murph are in the same spot today. We run a real small crew, even smaller than normal at the moment, and the unfortunate reality of that is if i’m not able to go, it often means we just need to call it. Today is one of those days. We’ll be closed tonight, 9/30, so no dinner service or trivia. I hate it, but sometimes you reach a limit and there’s no coaxing or maneuvering to find a way past it. I apologize to anyone who had plans to join us this evening, and I’ll see you Thursday.

09/28/2024

Saturday night, 5ish, we’ll be dropping these spicy curried sea island red peas with blackened snapper and a creamy pumpkin & chanterelle sauce. Available until we’re out, possibly still around tomorrow, who knows?

Oh, and a special on tea, hot or iced, with some housemade SoCo. $8 all night! Come through, grab a plate! See how much zydeco I can play before the crew mutinies.

09/27/2024

This, broadly, is tumultuous right now. If no one has told you, i’ll tell you here: it’s okay if you’re operating at less than optimal function. It’s okay if the heaviness of the world, with its genocides and greed and state sanctioned killings and lies upon lies, is making you pause upon waking. It’s okay if you don’t have it in you to return that phone call or answer that email or meet your friends after work. It doesn’t mean you’re being neglectful, it means you’re conscious in 2024.
It’s okay if the thought of creating never-ending content to remain relevant on a platform saturated with bots and stepford influencers makes you want to scream yourself hoarse into a void.
It’s okay if your current 100% is less than yesterdays or tomorrows.
It’s okay, service industry folks, if your tolerance for the abuse we face daily is depleted sometimes.
It’s okay if you need a break. It’s okay to vocalize that need. It’s okay to acknowledge the need and push through anyway.
There’s no rules to this s**t. We aren’t built to be fuel for the machinations of capitalism. We have a very limited time to find some things we love, and to dive into those things with joy.
All i’m trying to say is, i’m glad you’re here. And I hope that what you present and receive, to and from the world, is nourishing and kind.

09/21/2024

Highlighting my current favorite sandwich on our new menu: “Love From Hanover” - amoroso, roast pork, blueberry mustard, crushed pretzel, provolone, broccoli rabe, pork jus. If a sandwich can be filling and also somehow sessionable, this is that sandwich.

We’ll post our other new things just as soon as we have time to get some tasty photos 🤣
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Since a lot of you are new here, I figured it’s a good a time as any to highlight some of the things that have the marks of my hands in Salem.

The longtime favorites at Taproot (and the mill, and the trolley) are from yours truly, from way back in the day.

Had a chance to enjoy the food offerings from Isaac’s? You guessed it, twas I who constructed that menu.

How about the killer food out at Bryn Mawr, either the small plates or the Peak Harvest Tasting Menu Dinners? That’s from me, culinary director on the hill. Catch our next dinner on 10/18, by the way. Tickets via .
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I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t deeply satisfying to know that the fruits of my mental and physical labor are kinda unavoidable in Salem. Keep pushing. I ain’t done, and neither is our food scene, which gets better every year. Quick shoutout to the bread & butter service and steak bites at Paradiso, the Po’ Boy at Noble Wave, and the everything they do at Manna as some of the best food you can get in Salem right now 💚

P.S. I built the menus at Isaacs and Taproot, but I am not involved in any way with either anymore. Those baby birds flew proudly.

09/20/2024

Come try all the new things on our food menu (have you had the bomboloni? It’s strange and lovely💚) this weekend, and might as well grab this cocktail from while it lasts!

• blanco tequila / lime / grapefruit / aperol / ancho reyes verde / blackstrap rum •

09/13/2024

New menu on this spookiest of days! We rolled out a lot of new goodies yesterday, some of which are pictured here. I am partial to the bomboloni and the “Love From Hanover”, the roast pork sandwich with pretzels and blueberry mustard.

This menu is a window into the passions that started Epilogue. Each page has a theme, each item a conceptual storyline as well as a utilitarian purpose. This menu is for me, to talk to you.

For the moment, longtime standards are gone. No pierogi, no pork chop, no chicken at all. But we have 7 animal proteins represented on the menu. An equal number of vegetarian presentations. It is still an egalitarian selection of dishes designed to welcome all walks, but I am leaning heavier into the food designs that make me happy. Like a fish egg donut. Flavors that clash without a bridge, but work wonderfully with one, like the apple and cocoa in the duck leg. There is more opportunity with this menu to understand how i view food, the construction of a plate, and my personal philosophy on why we turn sustenance into art (not Art). Come try these glimpses into the world that I see. Keep an open mind, allow yourself to experience something new to you.

Like poetry, the information is in the works and you are invited to draw your own conclusions. If you see me, ask a question, i’m an open book and I love to talk about this stuff. Don’t expect the crew to be able to give you answers though, sometimes my explanations of why are rambling and esoteric and I don’t expect them to retain that information.

I am reminded frequently that we are doing things that others aren’t. It’s said as a negative, as a warning. To me, the new is the whole reason for doing this. The point of discovery, the moment of personal revelation, is the salve that makes the stress, the hate, the long hours, all worthwhile. I blame Ms. Frizzle.

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