This family-owned restaurant shares a roof with Rock Coast Brewery, making it a unique and welcoming place to have a family dinner, conduct a business meeting or just relax and hang out with friends. Serving beer brewed in-house, along with wine, cocktails and locally sourced food, AKA Kitchen is any food lover's dream spot.
The original concept was to only serve breakfast and lunch, but when they found their current building, formerly Adelita's, the ideas began to take off to include not just dinner, but an entire brewery as well. The large space allowed for a larger collaboration of ideas. So what does AKA stand for? Exactly what you would think it means, “also known as,” which ties to how they view the food they make.
AKA Kitchen brings a new twist to the table with how they re-envision food. They are inspired by traditional dishes, then work to create a completely different taste than what is normally expected by using new, fresh and distinctly different ingredients. What appears to be something classic is reincarnated into something delightfully original.
A lot of places advertise how fresh their food is, so what makes this place stand out? Their food comes from local farms, which means their menu changes based on what is available nearby. Their seasonal menus keep a few favorites, but for the most part change with the weather. Their new fall menu will be dropping the first week of October, which sounds like the perfect time to find a new favorite dish.
There is so much that makes this place unique, one of those things being their focus on building community through both the brewery and restaurant in one centrally located place. Each side brings a different crowd, and together they have built a truly diverse and incredible community of people who call this place their own. The atmosphere is fun and high-energy with live music featured almost every Saturday while also being a go-to hangout that is family-friendly.
AKA Kitchen and Rock Coast Brewery enjoy giving back to their community in a lot of ways. If you make it out to the Longview Marathon and Half Marathon brought to you by Gnar Runners and Sweetheart City Racing, you will be sure to see AKA Kitchen at the finish line handing out their tasty hummus and veggies to all the racers.
We decided to have a few people give us their opinions on some of the appetizers. There was a lot of discussion about how the Parmesan chips were made with such good-quality Parmesan, the veggies and hummus tasted fresh and were a nice light snack, the hummus changes four times a year and is a really nice healthy option. The winner, however, were the nachos.
Appetizer Taste-Off
The Food
1. Parmesan chips
2. Nachos
3. Hummus and veggies
The Score
1. Parmesan chips: 4 1/2 stars
2. Nachos: 5 stars
3. Hummus and veggies: 4 stars
The verdict was that while the healthier option, the hummus and veggies, came in last, and the Parmesan chips were the second favorite, nothing beats really amazing nachos.
