New name, menu for Pour at Four; Tacoma’s Marrow adds lunch service

Expect a new name, a new chef and a new menu at Proctor’s Pour at Four wine bar and restaurant. In late 2014, Steve Smith purchased the neighborhood wine bar from Mark and Susan Merrill, who operated Pour at Four for 10 years. Smith has been working on changes ever since.

The first noticeable change will be the name. The new name, G. Donnalson’s Pour at Four, is an amalgam.

“It’s a tribute to my parents and their names, George and Donna Lee Smith,” Smith said. A new sign should go up soon.

Smith said his parents passed along their love of good food, so it seemed fitting to squeeze their names into the restaurant somewhere. “We cooked a wide range of international foods; we had a pile of cookbooks. They showed me the enjoyment of cooking and the enjoyment of good food,” he said.

Smith also will serve as the restaurant’s executive chef and oversee revamping the menu. The small-plates theme will remain — with portion sizes trending on the smaller side — but Smith said he intends to offer a more robust selection of entrees. He also plans weekday lunch service and weekend brunch.

A new charbroiler will change the character of some of the meat and fish dishes. He’ll grill burgers, fish and steak on the new charbroiler. Steak eaters can expect more variety. In addition to the flat iron already on the menu, he’s adding a filet and ribeye.

He also intends to expand the offerings for vegetarians.

One thing he won’t fiddle with much is the wine program. The restaurant will continue to list a robust inventory of wine by the glass or bottle. The wine class is on hiatus for March, but it will return in April. Expect to see a cocktail menu soon featuring Northwest distillers.

Find G. Donnalson’s Pour at Four at 3814 N. 26th St., Tacoma; 253-761-8015 or facebook.com/gdonnalsons.

MARROW ADDS LUNCH SERVICE

Getting a table at Sixth Avenue’s busy Marrow restaurant just got easier — at lunch. The restaurant, co-owned by Hilltop Kitchen owners Chris Keil and Matthew Schweitzer, has notoriously long lines during busy dinner times. Lunch service began last week and will be offered Tuesdays through Saturdays.

The menu focuses on pasta, sandwiches and modestly priced entrees. The restaurant’s theme is a split concept, with menus for both vegetarians and meat eaters. On the meat side of the menu, find a lunch burger ($14) with chorizo bacon and chipotle duck fat aioli, aged cheddar and house-cut fries. Steak poutine ($15) comes with a Mornay sauce with cheese curds. Bucatini pasta ($16) is served with pork belly and clams. Mussels ($10) come with bacon lardons.

For vegetarians, there’s the house mushroom-farro burger ($12) with fontina, smoked aioli and house-cut fries. Risotto ($15) comes with hedgehog and black trumpet mushrooms. The bucatini and the vegetarian rigatoni ($15) display something new the restaurant is experimenting with: fresh-made pasta.

This week marks seven months of ownership for Keil and Schweitzer, who purchased the restaurant from Kyle Wnuk and Jaime Kay and Jason Jones, who own Top of Tacoma in the McKinley neighborhood. The trio originally opened Marrow in 2011.

Find Marrow at 2717 Sixth Ave., Tacoma; 253-267-5299 or marrowtacoma.com. (The restaurant is for diners 21 and older only.)

This story was originally published March 6, 2015 at 9:31 AM with the headline "New name, menu for Pour at Four; Tacoma’s Marrow adds lunch service."