Yesterday, DBTH sat down with Taavo Somer and Ken Friedman for their first ever joint interview to discuss their bar, The Rusty Knot. The dream team looked back on the first six months, talk about the new food menu, new fall cocktail list, hours, discuss the public reaction and look ahead to the next 50 years of drinking along the West Side Highway. DBTH will bring this exclusive interview to you in several installments. In part I, we cover the kitchen and changes to the menu. Onward.

DBTH: So we can see from looking at the menu that it is about 50% new.

Taavo: Some things are going to go away as it gets colder. Shrimp cocktail is going to go, Pulled pork is going to go. Chicken liver is going to go. Iceberg wedge is going to go and the oyster may go.

Ken: Pretzel dogs will never go.

T: The one interesting thing, we are still tweaking everything. What we are learning, we thought we’d be open from noon-4 am. One of those bars where you know, who is going in there at noon and getting wasted? We thought we would grow into one of those bars where people would be here at noon. The reality is it’s shifting, where people want to eat at midnight, and we have been cutting it off at midnight. We are going to shift and open later and serve later, because that is the demand. We are trying to be responsive to what is happening and not dictate what is happening

K: We came out guns blaring with a restaurant menu and a dive bar. I pushed for that really hard. The reality is, people want to eat late. We’re packed until really late and we stopped serving food at 12. We should be serving food until the bitter end. So we are going to stop serving lunch, open at 4 and serve until 4.

T: And the menu is going to be cut in half.

For late night?

T: No, for all the time. Just cut in half. A lot of these things will run until Sunday.

K: Some of these things, like the Chicken liver, we all love it but it’s not selling. The PO Boy sandwich is a big seller. It’s like Tom Waits records.

We love the chicken liver sandwich!

K: Get one tonight because its going off the menu!