Shackin' Up

For a bit of a change of pace from the normal Thursday night, the normal dinner/wine drinking crew (me, Jen, Deb, David and Marla) hit up The Shack last night for some nosh and wine. The Shack is normally a sub place--but this is no ordinary sub shack. They have an extensive beer and wine list that includes local small wineries and unusual varietals, and microbreweries mostly from the local area (Rubicon and Sudwerk on tap!). Jen and I stopped in for happy hour a couple of weeks ago and had a great time. The people were nice and the beer was cheap and good. After signing up for their email list we discovered a great thing--they have a buffet dinner every Thursday and theme changes according to the whims of the owners.

We committed to our plan last weekend, but didn't find out the theme of this week's dinner until Wednesday. I was pleased to find out that it was going to be comfort food. Regardless of what they fed us, I'd be happy! It turned out to be chicken pot pie, meatloaf, two kinds of mac & cheese (fontina and bleu), asparagus and green salad. The chicken pot pie was delicious and flavorful, the meatloaf was perfect (and I'm not even a meatloaf fan), the mac & cheese was decadent and even the asparagus stood up to the powerful flavors. Gary, the chef/owner, really outdid himself. If he could do these wonderful things to chicken pot pie, I wonder what else he can do?

There's also a wine tasting, 4 good sized tastes of wine for $10. Live music was played on the patio as well. We were all genuinely surprised by the amount of people who were there, but the crowd was friendly and neighborly. It almost felt like a giant family dinner. The only problem with the entire evening was that dinner didn't come out until after 7:30 and by then we were all starving. They could use some apps, but maybe that's to encourage us to eat more food. And really, what family dinner comes out on time? And for $10 a plate, it was quite a deal.

The Shack is open weekdays until 7 (happy hour as well!), closes on Thursdays at 3 and reopens at 6, and is closed on weekends (unfortunately). You can find The Shack on the corner of Folsom Blvd and 42nd in East Sac.