There was a time that going to The Anchor Pub meant knocking back a couple of PBRs, yelling at friends over the racket of passing trains and noshing on peanuts.
But over the past few years, The Anchor has really grown up. The once-upon-a-time “dive bar” is larger, pleasing to the eye and even hosts legitimate music acts. More importantly — at least for this review — it serves better food than just peanuts.
The Anchor, which reopened about a year ago, now has a full kitchen to go with its full bar, and it was time to check out the old haunt. I had not paid a visit in close to a decade, when The Anchor was known more for “train beers” than loud cheers. I texted a few buddies and told them to meet me there Friday night. I promised food, beer and some music.
First off, and I found this surprising, The Anchor can be apparently tough to find. It’s at the bottom of Hewitt Avenue, and current road construction is blocking much of the road just east of the bar. A couple of my friends had a tough time finding the place. In this age of Google Maps, I made fun of them for their lack of navigation.
I met my friend David around 8 p.m. and we took a seat at one of the large tables in the top portion of the bar (The Anchor is on two levels, with the bottom level housing the bar and the upper level the stage and tables.)
Though there was food being served to the table next to us, it was clear we weren’t going to be handed any menus or get an order taken any time soon, so we headed downstairs to the bar. We waited at the bar for a few minutes as a bartender entered information into a computer behind the bar. After 4 to 5 minutes, a bartender finally asked us if we wanted anything. It was bad service.
We ordered a beer and asked about food. “We don’t do table service on nights we have music,” we were told. OK.
We were informed that we’d have to order at the bar and the food would be brought to our table. We were a group of five dudes, so this was not a problem, but I could see how more finicky diners could be a bit put-off by this.
Once our whole group was together we decided to order food. The Anchor’s menu is much like any pub’s: fun appetizers, a few salads (often ignored), burgers, fish and chips and an off-the-wall fish dish — in this case salmon sticks. (Hey, it makes sense: The Anchor is spitting distance from the sea.)
We decided to grab The Anchor burger ($13), a beef patty topped with slow roasted pork, bacon, fried mac ‘n cheese bits and more, and six of the seven appetizers: pommes frites, shoestring potatoes, whiskey shrimp, stuffed jalapeños, BBQ sliders and a pork quesadilla. We also got one of each of the seven dipping sauces, including fry sauce, garlic aioli and more. It sounds like a lot of food, and it was.
The quesadilla, which has stuffed pork, two kinds of cheeses and peppers, was great. It was cooked perfectly and wasn’t messy. The BBQ sliders were a little messy, but the slow-roasted pork was tender and full of flavor. We liked the pommes frites over the shoestring potatoes, but both were crispy and perfect for the dipping sauces.
We went with the whiskey shrimp over the other shrimp appetizer, shrimp in white wine butter sauce, on the recommendation of the bartender who took our order (yes, the service was much better after the initial hiccup). The shrimp were cooked well, but it just didn’t work for us. Maybe it was all the starch around us, but the shrimp went mostly untouched.
The star for me was the stuffed jalapeños. Stuffed with cream cheese, parmesan and imitation crab, the jalapeños were then topped with a sweet chili sauce, which was a nice sweet finish for each one. They went fast.
As for the burger, it was a monstrosity, in a good way. One would think the bits of fried mac ‘n cheese would be too much, but no: It was a nice touch. Beware: This isn’t a burger for one human, and it can be a little messy with all the roasted pork spilling out.
The Anchor serves more earthly burgers, ranging from $8.50 to $11, including a Black &Blue Burger with blue cheese, a Whiskey BBQ Burger, a Surf &Turf Burger, with shrimp, and a Thai Chicken Burger. There’s also the classic burger for those less adventurous sorts.
The beer list is also upgraded from the old days. A recent Dogfish Head brewers night meant there was one of my favorite beers on tap: Dogfish Head’s Festina Peche, a unique beer that marries a Berliner Weissbier and peach concentrate.
Also on tap were regulars like Mac &Jack and PBR, along with more unique beers like a whiskey barrel-aged porter from Georgetown. There are also coolers full of bottles of craft beer and cider.
As for the music, we went on a night that had a solo rock act from Canada, which went on around 9:30 p.m. It was very loud in front of the stage upstairs, so after finishing eating, we moved downstairs, which had filled up and was much more crowded, and enjoyed some more craft beer. For old times’ sake, we even got a “train beer” — when a train passes, Anchor patrons yell out “train beers” for $1 PBRs.
Overall, it was a fun night visiting an old friend.
The Anchor Pub
1001 Hewitt Ave., Everett, 425-374-2580
Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday
Alcohol: Full bar; 12 beers on tap
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