Mixing it up in Eden Prairie

Aaron Johnson is affectionately known by other bartenders as a godfather of the Twin Cities' high-end cocktail scene. (However, I still haven't seen anyone kiss his hand when they meet him.)

Johnson earned this status as the co-owner of two cocktail-focused and unmistakably urban restaurants, the Town Talk Diner on E. Lake Street in south Minneapolis and the Strip Club Meat & Fish, which holds down a street corner on St. Paul's rough-and-tumble east side.

Now comes his toughest test: Can he make it in Eden Prairie, an affluent west-metro suburb known for its giant mall, big-box stores and McMansions (including Adrian Peterson's)? Johnson's gastro sports pub, Prairie Ale House, opened there in mid-November and is dabbling in all the goodness we've come to expect from him -- meticulously crafted cocktails, regional boutique beer and finely tuned bar food.

While the tastes might be sophisticated, the Prairie Ale House's dark-wood interior and sporty theme is as unpretentious as they come. Located about three miles west of Eden Prairie Center on Hwy. 5, the bar has taken over a former Timber Lodge Steakhouse in an unassuming strip mall. While the bar lacked a proper sign for its first month in operation, curious Eden Prairie-ites still found the place. In fact, crowds have packed the joint every weekend.

Anyone who loved what Johnson and company did at the Town Talk Diner will feel a striking sense of familiarity. The name, the size and the look are all different, but the style of food and drink suggests an old friend.

A sequel, of sorts

In a move that surprised a lot of foodies, Johnson and his Town Talk business partner, Tim Niver, sold their stakes in that restaurant in 2008. While the two still co-own the Strip Club, Niver isn't involved at Prairie Ale House (don't worry, he's busy with the recent opening of the Inn in downtown Minneapolis).

Prairie Ale House is essentially a twist on a big sports bar, where prowess is often defined by the size of your flat-screen. (For the record, Johnson's biggest is a 120-inch projection monster.) However, the food is a notch above most sports bars. Begnaud has loaded the menu with heavy, hearty plates. Simply naming them could clog an artery. There's a bacon-wrapped meatloaf sandwich ($10). The Kraut Muncher is a brat burger topped with gruyere and spicy sauerkraut ($11). There's the "bacon steak," which is exactly how it sounds -- a fat slab of bacon ($5). I love the gravy-slathered, cheese-curd-bombed poutine fries ($7). And when's the last time you ate truffled duck confit ($25) at a sports bar?

Death to appletinis

On opening weekend, the simple twist of orange zest into an Old Fashioned drew shrieks of excitement from my neighbors sitting at the bar. The mixology vets behind the bar were also keen on schooling curious customers on the nerdy semantics of craft cocktailing. ("A daiquiri is not a martini," one of them informed a patron.)

Still, for all this cocktail fanfare, pints of beer far outnumbered cocktail glasses along the massive steel bartop.

"The first couple of weeks people were scared," Johnson said. "But they've come around. Now they just come in and say, make me something."

"We're trying to wean people off their gigantic troughs of fruit juice," Larson said. That's his way of saying "appletinis."

While confident in his craft, Johnson knows old habits die hard.

"Some people are always going to drink Coors Light, and we definitely cater to those people too," he said. One of the bar's top sellers is the Coors Light 7-ounce Silver Bullet bottle, which is $1 during happy hour.

With a name like Ale House, I expected something stunning from its beer selection. While the tap list could use some work (do you really need Miller Lite, Mich Golden and Budweiser?), the bottle list draws from an impressive assortment of top craft breweries (Furthermore, Bell's, Lagunitas, Southern Tier, among others).

More to come

"We haven't even opened up the trunk of surprises," Larson said.

Johnson is committed to keeping the Prairie Ale House on this track. He said he's taking the Cosmo off the drink menu (don't worry, you can still order it if you must). He wants to make room for a half-dozen new cocktails that he hopes customers will explore.

"We're trying to do it in a nice manner -- trying not to be in their face," Johnson said. "We'll get them all hooked eventually."

Coming from the Godfather, that sounds like an offer no one should refuse.

thorgen@startribune.com • 612-673-7909 • Follow Tom on Twitter: @tomhorgen