Yet another new restaurant will open in the Slope this August, but this eatery boasts a 21st century twist: the menu will be decided by the eatery's neighbors, based on suggestions submitted via the restaurant’s Facebook page.
SweetWolf’s, on Sixth Avenue at the corner of 12th Street, will be all about community, the virtual and the real.
The Facebookers whose menu ideas are picked by the owners, Tim Judge and Eric Wolf, will be invited to the soft opening to eat, drink and tweak the menu by taste testing.
“Park Slope is a real community. What a better way to be a neighborhood restaurant than by involving our neighbors to decide the menu?” said Tim Judge, the former manager of .
Of course, Judge and Wolf have set a few parameters of their own for the menu. It will revolve around “classic American cuisine” cooked in a wood-burning brick oven. The menu will be vegan, vegetarian, and Gluten-free friendly, but will also boast American staples like steaks and burgers.
The food will be mostly locally bought and change according to season—with soups and hearty meals in the winter and light, fresh meals in the summer. A small bar will host up to 10 rotating microbrews on tap and a nice selection of wine. In the mornings, the bar will serve up coffee by Forty Weight Coffee Roasters.
One item that Wolf and Judge are dead set on serving is Belgian fries cooked in duck fat. (A painting in the window even depicts a duckling holding Belgian fries, in order to “fatten up.”)
“We will serve the kind of food you cook at home, but we do the dishes,” said Judge, who has lived in the area for six years( and will soon legally change his last name to Sweet,his step-father’s surname, thus the eatery name SweetWolf).
So far, the ideas submitted to SweetWolf’s Facebook page have been interesting, running the gammit from a "Jewish Grandma Plate" (a cup of Matzo ball soup, roasted chicken and potato pancakes) to chicken and waffles with Sriracha hot chili sauce, maple syrup and blackberries.
To further push the community notion, SweetWolf’s will have two 10-foot long tables with a 20-foot mahogany-striped banquette on one side and chairs on the other.
Wolf, who is a commercial graphic artist, said they will implement something called “the scootch factor:” If people at the community table scootch over to fit strangers, the table will receive free appetizers. Wolf says they want to “encourage community interaction and put the spotlight on the anti-social type.”
Meat-eaters might want to start submitting ideas to the Facebook page, consider the overwhelming amount of vegan and vegetarian ideas.
But, really, there is no reason to fear, for Judge and Wolf are full-on carnivores.
“In the brick oven there will be a suckling pig. I can promise you that,” Judge says.
