Saddle up for chocolate pie and ice cream at a new Stockyards bar with a sweet tooth
This page is not usually for bar snacks.
But that was before bars started serving pie.
A new Mule Alley bar serves pies and premium ice cream, worth a daytime or early after-dinner stop even if you’re not looking for an Old Fashioned or a shot of rye.
Sidesaddle Saloon, on a back walkway behind 122 E. Exchange Ave., is the work of business partners Sarah Castillo, Glen Keely and Christian Lehrmann of Tinie’s.
Together, they’ve brought a chef-driven appetizer menu and clever cocktails to a space next door to chef Tim Love’s coming Mexican restaurant, Paloma Suerte.
Sidesaddle Saloon serves a Stockyards kind of tapas menu: beef jerky, deviled eggs, ham with pimiento cheese, bacon-cheddar-chive biscuits.
Then there’s pie.
The pies ($8/slice) come from Fort Worth-based Stir Crazy Bakery, 1251 W. Magnolia Ave. For now, they come in three basic flavors: coconut meringue, chocolate cream or an apple-crumb pie with candied pecans.
Lehrmann said he decided to serve pie in a bar because “it seems natural for every Texan to eat pie.”
He’s been going to the Stockyards his whole life, particularly to buy boots or hats.
Now, he’s one of the new chefs making Mule Alley a dining destination, along with Love, Marcus Paslay at Provender Hall and Grant Morgan at 97 West.
“Mule Alley is a whole new take on the Stockyards,” he said.
“The goal is to get local people back into the Stockyards. It’s a really fun place.”
Sidesaddle is meant to be a second or third Stockyards stop on a night along with dinner at Provender Hall or 97 West, or a show at Billy Bob’s Texas, he said.
Castillo is also planning a new location two blocks away of her Taco Heads restaurant.
“We’re busy here pre-dinner and after dinner,” she said this week. “People go to dinner and then they come over here.”
This seems unintentional. But they’ve also opened the best premium ice cream shop in the Stockyards, with Texas peach, maple-walnut and Mexican vanilla flavors (three/$10) from Plano-based Henry’s, 3100 Independence Parkway.
That’s the brand often served in fine restaurants. (It’s sold retail in Fort Worth at Great Outdoors Sub Shop.)
“I really like Henry’s and I’ve used their ice cream for the last decade” at past restaurants, Lehrmann said. “Ice cream goes great with cordials.”
Sidesaddle serves a maple whiskey that matches the ice cream, he said.
Sidesaddle Saloon opens at 3 p.m. weekdays, noon weekends; 817-862-7952, sidesaddle-saloon.com.
This story was originally published April 7, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
