Now open: Pauly’s Pub and Grill in former Kalsada spot

RESTAURANT NEWS

From right to left, Pauly’s Pub and Grill co-owner Jim Flaherty, server Bree Wood, server Nate Sheldon and co-owner Joe Kasel smile at the bar of the new Selby Avenue restaurant on Friday. Pauly’s opened mid-November in the space formerly occupied by Filipino restaurant Kalsada. PHOTOS BY JARED KAUFMAN — PIONEER PRESS

The exterior of Pauly’s Pub and Grill, a new neighborhood bar on Selby Avenue, is shown on Friday. In addition to plenty of beers, cocktails and THC drinks, the restaurant also serves a variety of American-food appetizers and burgers.

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By Jared Kaufman

jkaufman@pioneerpress.com

You really don’t get more classic St. Paul than this: The original founder of Eagle Street Grille, the restaurant formerly across from the Xcel Energy Center, has teamed up with a past Winter Carnival King Boreas to open a neighborhood beers-and-burgers pub on Selby Avenue.

It’s called Pauly’s Pub and Grill, stylized with an Irish shamrock for an apostrophe. Named after St. Paul, of course.

The restaurant opened Nov. 15. When you walk in, you’d be forgiven for thinking Pauly’s had been there since 1923, not 2023.

Until September, the space was home to the modern-Filipino restaurant Kalsada. And though some decorative elements remain, including a couple hanging light fixtures and the arched trellis behind the bar, the tropical leaf wallpaper has given way to wood paneling with huge TVs and framed jerseys. In true dive fashion, the restaurant’s “main entrance” is the side door.

“Our goal is to build a place where people can come two, three, four times a week and have a pint of beer and wings or a burger, and it’s not going to gouge their pockets,” said co-owner Joe Kasel.

As for the menu, think cheese curds, jalapeño poppers, giant meatballs, plenty of sandwiches, and fully a dozen varieties (count ‘em!) of double-smash burgers. Their house burger grind is 85 percent chuck, 10 percent standard ground beef and 5 percent butter, Kasel said.

Plus, there’s plenty of beer, wine, cocktails and THC drinks.

Kasel is a downtown restaurant vet who at previous points owned Eagle Street Grille, Ox Cart Ale House and the Salt Cellar. In 2016, the restaurants became part of Jim Crockarell’s Madison Restaurant Group; Kasel is no longer affiliated with the company, he said. His business partner at Pauly’s, Jim Flaherty, was King Boreas in 2016 and currently also owns CORE Communications.

Much of the business at Kasel’s previous restaurants was driven by special-occasion dining, he said, but he hopes Pauly’s is a place where neighborhood residents will become regulars. There’s also plenty of parking, he pointed out.

“I could never do this menu idea at my other restaurants,” he said. “They were too event-driven. When you have 1,000 people coming for dinner within two hours, you can get creative with it to an extent — but this allows for a little more creativity and flexibility.”

At Pauly’s, some ingredients are local: The bacon and Duroc pork chops come from Compart Family Farms near St. Peter, and they use former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Ed McDaniel’s Fire Dog brand of hot sauce.

Another connection: One burger is a partnership with White Bear Lake clothing brand The Minnesotan, whose founder is a longtime friend, Kasel said. The brand’s Minnesota landmark-themed products are driven by “tradition, heritage, culture and nostalgia,” their website says, and also include merch for local organizations like high schools and the conservative website Alpha News.

Kalsada, the previous tenant of the space that’s now Pauly’s, closed in September after about a year and a half. Owners Leah Raymundo and John Occhiato still run the popular Cafe Astoria, off West Seventh and Grand Avenue, which recently added an Italian dinner menu.

Pauly’s Pub and Grill hours are 11 a.m. to midnight every day.

Pauly’s Pub and Grill >> 1668 Selby Ave; 651-888-6299; paulyspubandgrill.com/