Park Creek Kitchen is the newest addition to the Upper Arlington dining scene, and they’re working on walking the line between being an upscale restaurant and casual eatery.
“We’re trying to provide fine dining quality with our service and food” said Chef Jeff Headley, “But we’re not charging fine dining prices and our environment isn’t at all stuffy.”
The new restaurant is located in the suburb’s historic district on Arlington Avenue and is a project many years in the making.
“This is my fifteenth year in the restaurant industry,” explained Jeff. “and I’ve been working on this project for a long time. I really like this area, and finally found a nice place where I could negotiate a good deal. Upper Arlington is really strict on where you can have a liquor license, and there were none available for purchase at the time, but City Council voted unanimously on allowing me to transfer one here from Cleveland,” said Jeff.
Everything else in the restaurant has been designed and built from the ground up.
“My family owns a construction company, so everything you see in here was built by myself and my family,” said Jeff.
The decor is warm and inviting, mirroring the menu offerings which Jeff describes as American Comfort Food.
“99% of our ingredients are either grown locally or sourced within the United States,” explained Jeff. “We try to work with as many self-sustaining and organic farms as possible. And we don’t have a freezer here, so nothing we use is frozen.”
The current menu includes a variety of appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers and entrees. Some of the standout items include fried homemade pickles with a tarragon mustard sauce ($6), a “we three pigs” sandwich containing a fried pork cutlet, smoked bacon, pulled pork and amish swiss ($8), a Southwest-style burger topped with fried green tomato and quillija chili sauce ($8), and crab cakes served with root vegetable fries ($20).
Additionally, the drink menu was created with the same mindset and features a unique assortment of domestic products.
“All of our beer and wine is made in the United States,” explained Jeff. “We specialize in microbrews and our wines almost entirely come from small batch production. We won’t carry anything that is mass produced, so our selection won’t be the usual things you’d find in the grocery store.”
Park Creek Kitchen is also adorned with a large dining patio in the front of the building, which lends itself to hosting special events in the summer.
“We’ll have live acoustic music on Tuesday nights, and may eventually do some Sunday brunch music as well, once we obtain our Sunday sale license,” said Jeff.
During the month of May, Park Creek Kitchen has quietly opened their doors to host several charity events and to allow neighbors and local businesses an opportunity to discover that they are open.
“We’ve already done a good amount of business in the evenings,” said Jeff “and we’ll be fully open sometime during the first week of June. My philosophy is that if you open up and do a good job and build relationships and friends and if they like what we’re doing, then they’ll come back for more. We’re not looking to pack the place full and make the neighbors mad with a bunch of noise. We’re very family-oriented and we want to be a locally-focused restaurant.”
Park Creek Kitchen is located at 2124 Arlington Ave., Upper Arlington, OH 43221. Their hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 10pm, Sunday Noon to 8pm and closed on Monday.
More information can be found online at www.parkcreekkitchen.com.
