Check Out the Holding Pen, Hog & Hominy’s New Bar

Hog and Hominy has been doing a little expanding. Meet the Holding Pen, the restaurant's new back porch addition.

Inside, Hog and Hominy is all farmhouse chic, bright and airy and just a tiny bit rustic. The back porch, though, is a different story. Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman have turned the patio behind their restaurant into their version of a dive bar.

It's called the Holding Pen, and it's only open on weekend nights from 6 p.m. until they feel like closing (read: late). The menu is limited, but on the night that I was there, you could order food from inside as well as the John T. Edge burger, Koolickles (aka, pickles brined in Kool-aid) and the greatest meatballs known to man – the spicy, sauce-covered meatballs that used to be served at the inside bar.

Keeping with the dive bar theme, the bar is limited to a few kinds of liquor, a special drink (Saturday night, it was Sex on the Beach) and $3 cans of beer.

The seating is two long picnic tables and a few barstools, and slightly warped records were spinning on a turntable behind the bar. The bartender (whose name I didn't catch) was exactly the kind of bartender you'd hope for at a place like this – a pretty, tattooed girl who was equal parts friendliness and sass.

As I understood it, the Holding Pen isn't quite finished. There are plans to add a dart board, and cover the big sliding barn doors in something, but that's no reason to wait to visit.

The Holding Pen is located at the back of the restaurant, through the bookshelf door by the bathrooms. If you get lost, just ask – the staff will point you in the right direction. You can also access it from outside. It's open on weekend nights, and they accept credit cards and cash. 

Go there:

The Holding Pen
at Hog and Hominy

(901) 207-7396