Roosevelt Ale House gets a tableful of thumbs up

The Roosevelt Ale House might be known by many Maple Leaf residents as their own neighborhood pub, but it looks like its reputation still is bringing fans from afar, similar to when it was The Jones Bistro.

Over the weekend The Seattle Times restaurant critic Marc Ramirez gave the ale house’s pub grub a tableful of thumbs up:

I knew we were on to something earlier this year when my dinner companions slurped down the Roosevelt’s beef stew with satisfied surprise, cooing over the red-wine-steeped broth and tender chunks of meat.

This may be pub grub — but it’s pub grub in the sense that butterflies are insects — which is to say that there is some artistry involved. This is what you get when you put quality, seasonal ingredients and a practiced hand in the kitchen.

A practiced hand indeed. Although The Jones Bistro lost its namesake chef Jason Jones before the transformation, it kept much of its staff when owners Scott and Michelle Simpson reopened the 8824 Roosevelt Way N.E. location as the Roosevelt Ale House last summer.

It also kept enough of an emphasis on food that it’s known as more than just another watering hole – albeit one with a beer snob-worthy selection of both draught and bottled beers from around the globe.

“We’re still making everything in-house,” Scott Simpson says, although he admits he sometimes misses such gourmet foods as foie gras that no longer fit the pub model.

However, at the time the transformation was needed not only because of the economy, but also because of the birth of the Simpsons’ daughter in the midst of the renovations, which meant that the hard-working couple no longer would be able to each clock in 40-plus hours a week at their business.

“It’s not like I’ve relaxed my expectations, but it’s not like I feel like I have to have my fingers in everything anymore,” Simpson says of the newer model for the establishment. “I feel better about not being here as much, and Michelle’s not here at all.”

And it’s not as if owning a pub wasn’t part of the plan for the Simpsons anyway, since The Jones originally was the pub Joe’s on Roosevelt when they bought it in 2005.

“It’s kind of what we thought we were getting in the first place,” Simpson said of the new ale house.

But the business still is a young one, with a few kinks here and there to work out, especially as the economy continues to ripple.

“We’re still figuring out how to do this business here,” Simpson adds. “We’re happy that the neighborhood still likes us.”