Sartre
1910 Elm Street, OTR
Opened September 2017
Closed January 2020
It’s really easy to assume that a food option that was attached to our biggest local brewery would be just like the other food options around town. I wouldn’t have been shocked to see some delicious pizza or barbecue when the brewery announced that part of their expansion would include a food option that would serve their taproom.
What we got instead is a great restaurant – it had a little bit of French flair to it (hence the name, Sartre) but its wide-ranging menu did it’s best to please anyone who found themselves at a table inside their industrial-chic dining room. From Rhinegeist’s taproom, you could even order up a burger which will make it’s way upstairs via their air-powered “burger tube”… there is nothing pretentious, nor typical about that.
I could go on and on about the food options… but this is a drinking blog, isn’t it? We should talk about the bar.
Sartre’s bar didn’t stray too far from the pieces of personality that the building they are in has – large exposed beams, some peeling paint, and dim lighting made you feel like you’ve stepped back in time to an older, classy version of what Cincinnati was. These are the types of places that I love grabbing a cocktail over a beer.
You would never have felt out of place with a manhattan in a heavy glass, or a small glass of absinthe to sip away on and ponder life’s great questions… it was something spectacular.
Unfortunately, Sartre announced that they’d be closing down permanently starting at the beginning of 2020, and have since been replaced by a Cincinnati Style chili restaurant.