Photo by Caitlin Abrams
Cocktail, burger, cheese curds
If you’re a fan of good dive bars but find their menus at odds with the way you’ve focused your healthy eating habits, you are not alone.
In fact, Sarah and Dariush Moslemi are with you—so much so that they have created The Wild Hare, a Stillwater bar that fuses organic and dive. The couple, who own The Velveteen Speakeasy a few blocks away, don’t skimp on the junk food, just the junk. The core value of their menu is that you can make fun food good while keeping it real.
Cheese Curds
You can’t have a dive bar if things aren’t fried—that’s an immutable law. These are as tasty, crisp, and oozy as they need to be but also battered with a proprietary gluten-free flour and fried in rice bran oil. This magic combination delivers 30 percent fewer calories, twice the protein, and three times the fiber of curds made with other flours.
Cocktails
Fresh juices are pressed daily in the joint. Unlike most dive bars, you can get a smoothie with your lunch if you want, but it’s a dive bar, so why not day drink? The Health Tonics section of the bar menu takes those fresh-pressed juice blends and gives them a booze boost. Nuttin’ but a G Thang is The Wild Hare’s Green Machine blend of kale, ginger, apple, and lemon with a little kick of gin. It’s a detox-to-retox moment in one glass.
Burgers
Healthy burgers are nothing new. In fact, they’re driving a billion-dollar fake-meat industry. The Wild Hare is going all natural, to great success, but it’s more than your old black bean burger. Feel free to choose standard meat, or sub in caulafel for a hybrid cauliflower-falafel vegan bite. You can sub a keto bun or GF bun as easily as you can upgrade with fries.
Plus More
You’ll still find highly potent classic drinks and standard dive bar nuance, including video games, ’90s music, and crispy wings with your choice of dipping sauce. There’s a good balance, and there’s respect for all kinds of eaters. You get grilled NY strip with herbed butter and roasted veggies, your date gets roasted Moroccan cauliflower with crispy chickpeas—and everyone wins.
218 N. Main St., Stillwater, wildharebar.com
