The new Palace Pub may look a lot like Wrestaurant at the Palace, the restaurant that preceded it: Very long wood bar, classy teal walls, festive entryway mural, outdoor patio space and walk-up pizza window.

But don’t be fooled: They’re different! The pizza is thin-crust now!

Jokes aside, the Palace Pub is pitching itself as a bar — a distinct vibe, if subtly so, from its predecessor.

“Before, we’d said ‘restaurant,’ and now it’s a bar,” said Marc Dickhut, the director of general operations for First Avenue, which owns the restaurant and co-manages the adjacent Palace Theatre. “You can still have great food and great service and be a bar. There are plenty of amazing restaurants in this area. We just want to be a good bar, with good food.”

Wrestaurant, which opened in fall 2023, was a partnership between First Avenue and local Detroit-style shop Wrecktangle Pizza, but the Palace Pub is fully an in-house project, Dickhut said. Wrestaurant quietly closed last fall amid extensive water damage to its building, bought in early 2023 by now-troubled Madison Equities. The spot had previously been home to Wild Tymes.

Now as the Palace Pub, the menu is completely redone: More casual and tavern-y, with similarities to the menu at The Depot, First Avenue’s restaurant next to its downtown Minneapolis flagship. The staff is new. And because of the water damage, some of the furniture, fixtures and plumbing are new, too.

It’s certainly a place to eat before Palace shows or other concerts or events downtown, but Dickhut and his team also hope you’ll visit even when your next stop isn’t next door, he said. Arcade games and pinball have been added, and the place is open regularly 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, regardless of various nearby venues’ event schedules.

The Palace Pub opened a little early on its first day for a sneak peek, and I stopped by to check it out. As for drinks, they’ve got 12 beer taps, plus cans, wine, non-alcoholic options and cocktails that, at least in the case of my TC Side Car, were appropriately strong.

And speaking of that thin-crust pizza, it’s good.

I sprung for a classic cheese. Whole pizzas are cut into squares, but slices are also available. The point is not to be a push-the-envelope pizza, though I did appreciate that the sauce was especially zesty; it’s to be one you’d happily split with friends over some drinks, which it was.

Same goes for the Buffalo wings, served as separate drumettes and flats instead of whole as previously: They’re Buffalo wings that taste like Buffalo wings. And you know what? That hits the spot.

Palace Pub >> Open 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesdays—Saturdays at 33 W. Seventh Place; 952-600-5611; palacepubstpaul.com