Vacant Milton restaurant finally gets an occupant, The Mill Restaurant and Sports Bar

The Mill Restaurant and Sports Bar is in its final push to open in a restaurant space that has been vacant for several years. If all goes as planned, it could open in the next week.

The Milton restaurant will have a metered opening with limited hours serving only dinner for at least the first week. After its soft opening, it will resume its regular schedule of lunch and dinner served daily.

The restaurant is located in a long-vacated space that once held A’s Sports Pub and Grill on the edge of the Surprise Lake shopping center. It’s one of few locally owned full service restaurants in the area, and it took owner Kate Lowry at least three years to find the location.

She’s owned Ricky J’s in Frederickson for eight years and has been looking to expand to Milton where she grew up (she now lives in neighboring Edgewood). She’ll operate The Mill with her brother, Dustin Lowry.

The 200-seat restaurant will appeal to families with kids but also will appeal to grownups with a bar (that comes with a separate entrance). A full cocktail menu will be served.

Lowry named the restaurant with a nod to the city’s roots as a mill town. In fact, locals originally wanted to call the city Mill Town, but a pesky federal official rejected two names for the town and it was shortened to Milton.

The menu is the work of Alex Anton, a local chef with deep roots in Puyallup and formerly a chef at Tacoma’s Smoke + Cedar. His father, Jim Anton, has had a 40-year restaurant career. He previously operated Anton’s on Puyallup’s East Main, Charlie’s in downtown and Puyallup, and Anton’s Farmhouse at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. Today, he operates Anton’s at Watson’s.

Sandwiches and burgers make up the bulk of the lunch menu ($10-$17), which includes a few larger entrees ($17-$24). Dinner items include bone-in pork chops, spaghetti calabrese, Wagyu sirloin steak, lamb, duck and weekend prime rib ($16-$29). There also will be separate bar ($3-$15) and children’s menus ($5-$6).

Some menu items will appeal to both vegetarians and gluten-free diners.

Alex Anton will take classic American dishes he grew up eating and add modern touches and mash-ups.

The fried oysters will be made with a chicken-fried steak style breading. Hush puppies will come with Dungeness crab. Buttermilk biscuits are served with ham, house-cultured butter and burnt honey marmalade. Mac and cheese is made with a cheddar-beer sauce and comes with smoky bacon or crab meat. At lunch, a Reuben sandwich will be made with “porkstrami” in lieu of brisket. A Philly sandwich comes with house-made beer-flavored cheese sauce and house-fried chips.

This story was originally published June 2, 2017 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Vacant Milton restaurant finally gets an occupant, The Mill Restaurant and Sports Bar."