Double Barrel Craft Kitchen and Taphouse — Restaurant in Newport

First off, they are locally owned and thus far have regular/dependable hours of operation. It is a restaurant & bar but appears to be very family friendly. I even saw a post about a children's karaoke time slot.

While this place offers many different "zones " of seating types and atmospheres, it still retains its sense of openness. There is also an entirely separate dining area. The only thing I would suggest at this point would be lowered lighting in the bar area after a certain hour which could also serve as notice for children to leave the combined bar/restaurant section while leaving the lights up in the restaurant only section. Out back there is a small enclosed/fenced outdoor (smoker friendly of course) seating area around a cozy firepit which is perched at just the right height to keep your legs warm as well.

We were nicely greeted upon arrival and all staff were friendly. We decided to take seats up at the bar. I'm always appreciative when I find that there are purse hooks available underneath! The decor is cowboy/country style without being cutesy or trying too hard. The music at the time we were there was 80's and 90's and at a level where you could hear it to enjoy it but not so loud you felt you had to raise your voice to have a conversation. Nicely done on speaker placement and/or quality!

They offer 3 big screen tvs for sports/shows, digital jukebox, 2 electronic dart boards, a couple arcade games, and 2 pool tables (.75). On certain nights they have karaoke and music/dancing. They have a handful of beers on tap with enough variety for differing tastes, bottled/canned selections, and hard liquor also.

Everything is homemade except for the chicken strips. I don't even know where to begin about the food other than WOW! It is quite a bit pricey for our regular meals out but SO WORTH IT! Based off of this 1st visit, I dare says rivals...nay surpasses, the long standing well known steak house in Sandpoint.

All the food was cooked to perfection, tasted fantastic, and provided a portion to satisfy even the hungriest. We were also surprised by the quality, durability, and thought that went into the service wear such as napkins/cutlery/plates/glassware. While not overly fancy by any means, I appreciated its simplistic hardiness.

We began our gastronomic experience by sharing a cup of corn chowder soup. It wasn't overly thickened and was absolutely delightful as it boasted little hints of peppers and whole kernels  of corn.

I had the ranch bbq chicken quesadilla special. This is truly deceiving and was definitely a meal in itself or would be perfect to split between 2 more friends for a hearty app. It was grilled to a buttery crunchy perfection on the outside and stuffed with melty cheese goodness and moist chicken chunks dabbled lightly with bbq sauce on the inside. The accompanying sliced jalapenos were amazingly fresh.

My love had the fillet mignon special smothered in a shrimp portabello mushroom gorganzola sauce with a side of mashed potatoes and veggies for companions. It was cooked to perfection at medium rare with melt in your mouth tenderness. The butterflied shrimp were perfectly cooked as well. The potatoes were creamy, buttery, and hearty without being an over whippedd glutinous mess. Lastly the veggies, o.m.g...so fresh tasting and steamed just right retaining their slight crunch.

As you can see in the photo, the side salad was equally impressive and not boring with a nice mix of greens, cherry tomatoes (that didn't taste of fishy hydroponicu. Let me tell you, it's not for small mouths. LOL The presentation was again very eye catching....

There were good and bad points to all three categories inquired about.

1. Food; It tasted good but the portions were a bit small for the prices. Tasted good enough to merit more than two stars but the price vs portion size kept it far from five.

2. Service; We arrived and sat at a table somewhat close up the bar. We asked about whether they were still serving food as it was about 8;30pm. The bartender informed us they served food still but that we would need to order within i believe half an hour time. He took our drink orders, got us a few menus and said he'd get our waitress. After about 15 minutes we got his attention letting him know we were ready to order and didn't want to miss the cut off time to order. He ended up coming to take our order, brought our food and ended up being our waiter. All while he was serving drinks on karaoke night. I dont imagine it being like this all the time there and he did a great job for as busy as he was already. I'm not sure why the waitress never did show up, nor do i know if he waits on tables regularly anyhow but he did a decent job multitasking.. So, for the service category rating it could have been better but he deserves credit for this not ending up a two star rating.

3. Atmosphere; The space is big enough that it wasn't cramped and claustrophobic feeling. Seemed to be your normal bar vibe. The only change that would've been nice is to turn down the karaoke speaker just a bit so that when you're at the opposite end of the place (as we were) the music isn't too loud to talk to one another.

Overall though seems to be an...

Yesterday we thought ourselves lucky to find the restaurant open and finally had a chance to dine there. We understood it to be more of a cafe than a bar menu. We arrived just before noon.

There was a party of what appeared to be local workers that hadn't ordered yet when we arrived. More people joined the table as they perused the menu. Unbeknown to us a large party arrived after us that were seated where we couldn't see them. Each table seemed to have a different server.

We ordered coffee and it was very good. I was told about the second large party by our server after we inquired why we hadn't received our food after 40 minutes. She said she slipped our ticket in between the 2 large parties. Our food arrived after about 50 minutes. Unfortunately, being seated in the bar had us smelling stale spilled beer and damp. Not pleasant.

We are big proponents of shopping and spending our money locally whenever possible. We even accept that prices may be a little higher for a place to succeed and thrive. Sadly our meal was mediocre at best. I had an $18 French dip and hubs had (I think) a $16 Black & Blue burger. We substituted soup for the fries for an additional $3. All in the meal was $46 for LUNCH! Had I not given hubs half of my dip he would have left hungry.

We haven't decided if we'll have another go at it. As for...