Most people might be surprised to know that my first stint in town was actually at The Porch on Henderson. Coming from New York City, I couldn’t have found a better transition to Big D. Most people might also be surprised to know that The Porch’s cocktail program was set up by bartenders from Milk & Honey.
Now, many of the cocktails have changed as some of the bartenders but philosophy has always been consistent at the bar: well made-easy to understand cocktails, craft beers and an approachable yet adventuresome wine list. All this served by friendly engaging bartenders.
On a recent trip to The Porch I met up with a new transplant to Dallas, Emily Perkins who, like me, is introduced to Dallas by way of Henderson. On first impression Emily has a magnetic personality, a rock star image with enough goofiness to put you at ease. I caught up with Emily at DaLat and talked bartending over some Pho. I was impressed with her knowledge, experience and overall attitude of taking care of her patrons.
Do you feel it was a fairly easy segue coming from Spirit of 77 in Portland to the Porch in Dallas?
Surprisingly, yes. If you walked into both places they would obviously be different, but I do feel that the Porch was an easy transition. They both have a certain cocktail menu, and anyone that has been to the Porch knows that we have a lot of fruit and sour based drinks. They are all crowd pleasers.
There won’t be anything aromatic or overly boozy. We all can make that and they encourage us to have the background to do the entire spectrum. You can come to the Porch and get your Blackberry Smash or Strawberry Crush, but if you want a classic cocktail we can make the shit out of that too.
I think that a lot of people that I have met are surprised to learn that the Porch does have a cocktail program. I think that they are even more surprised that it was set up by the people at Milk & Honey in New York City.
I have had a couple of people say that they didn’t know we had a cocktail program, but it is really well structured. But w are highly encouraged by our managers to run fun cocktails during the week and see what people think about them.
I will say that our cocktail menu is changing. I think we found our niche and it works very well. We are always super busy and people like what we have there. But there is no reason to not have the cocktails we have there. We are literally across from Victor Tangos and Hibiscus. Places that have classic cocktail programs, which is great. But I kind of like that we can do anything. We can make something really fruity and fun for someone, or something that is pretty intense.