Costello's Bar and Grille, St. Paul

Not too long ago, I decided to explore the twin cities.  This led to me spending over two hours lost in western St. Paul.  Once I managed to become unlost (the secret: figuring out I had actually been in eastern St. Paul the whole time), I realized I was hungry, so I stopped at the first place I saw that looked like it sold burgers.  That place was Costello's Bar and Grille.

The non-descript menu was a harbinger of things to come.

Considering it was mid-afternoon on a relatively sunny day, Costello's was dark.  The doorways were open, even though it was a bit cool out (there aren't many sunny yet cool days in the summer, they're worth enjoying).  It had a loose Irish theme (I'm always a fan of that).  The bar was relatively well populated, the rest of the restaurant was nearly deserted.  There was either a bird inside the bar, or someone at the bar was repeatedly making bird noises; either way, it was disconcerting, and I give Costello's bad marks for neither putting a stop to it nor even acknowledging that there was a problem.  There was a significant amount of sports memorabilia on the walls, and more than a little alcohol advertising, particularly for Crown Royal.

As a serial user of Crown Royal bags, this was a comforting sight (the flags were just paper, not real bags).

My waitress wore a shirt which read (and I believe I copied this verbatim): "The Bible talks about St. Paul, but it doesn't mention Minneapolis."  Still relatively new in the area, I find clear and obvious markers of local sentiment like this very helpful.  I found it a bit odd, though it took me awhile to notice this, that there were no place settings at the table.  Instead, napkins and utensils were kept off to the side of the table, and I was (apparently) expected to set my own place with whatever I needed. 

You can see the utensils in a glass mug next to the napkins.

This seems like a really good idea: I only used the pieces I actually needed, which saves everyone the cost of having to rewash and reset unused utensils, and if something happened and I needed a spare fork, it was really convenient to get one.  That said, it still kind of threw me for a loop when I figured out that that was the system.

The burger was slightly overdone, and in places the bun was downright burnt.  It didn't taste bad, but it did taste generic; there was little character to the burger.  It wasn't very filling, either.

The fries were fairly standard, square cut with some potato and some oil.  They were salty, and a bit reminiscent of deli fries.

I can't say a lot about Costello's that's negative, I just can't say a whole lot that's positive.  It was a fine burger oasis in a new city, but I imagine that if I had driven another block, I could have found somewhere better.

To get a sense of how unimportant the Irish theme is to this bar, note that this is the only photograph in which there's a shamrock.