The Exchange Pub + Kitchen

The Story

The building went up in 1875 as Shraders Stable and Livery, selling first-class buggies, rockaways, hacks, and a stock of horses. It later held Hendricks Poultry Company in the 1930s and after that a tire shop. Ian Hall restored it and opened The Exchange in the space, and if you look up at the mezzanine you'll still find a LIVERY STABLE sign hanging where it belongs.

That's not decoration borrowed from somewhere else. That's the building telling you what it used to be.

The Vibe

First thing I said walking in was that the place is huge. Two stories of open volume with the original riveted steel trusses left exposed overhead, spiral ductwork running through them, and a full mezzanine reached by an open steel stair set against bare brick. Wagon-wheel candle chandeliers hang down into all that space. The floors are polished concrete and the tabletops were built from the building's original floor joists.

The main bar runs long under a deep backbar with a serious bourbon wall and a hand-painted DRAUGHTS and BOTTLES chalkboard. Toward the back there's a second bar area where full glass garage doors roll up to the street under an industrial ceiling fan the size of a small aircraft. The patio outside is includes cover and heaters mounted overhead, a gas fire-pit table ringed by wicker sectionals, and brick knee walls with wrought iron facing Main Street.

The entry has an Old Forester delivery-bike cart being used as a host stand and a whiskey barrel stamped 792 pressed into service as a two-top. Olive tufted banquettes line the brick.

I got there for a late lunch and had the room mostly to myself. Around 4:30 people started filing in, and it turned into the kind of place where everybody seems to know each other. My guess is it gets packed at night. Worth knowing that what I saw was the off-peak version.

The Drinks

The Exchange Old Fashioned is $12 on Green River bourbon with demerara, angostura and black walnut bitters, an amarena cherry, and both lemon and orange peel. It's excellent, and more to the point it was excellent twice.

The Food

Read the menu closely and the suppliers are named all the way down it. Marksbury Farm for the brat, Legacy Bakery for the rolls and focaccia, Cultivated Table for the pretzel bread, Verlasso for the salmon. That's a kitchen making a specific argument about where its food comes from, and it's the reason "typical bar food" doesn't fit here.

The goat cheese fritters were terrific. Seven panko-crusted spheres cooked to perfection, the cheese inside soft all the way through, the crust exactly where it should be. They sit in bacon date aioli with honey drizzled over the top. I'm not much for dates, so the sweet side didn't land for me, and that's my palate rather than a miss by the kitchen. I still ate three.

The Italian sandwich (served on Legacy Bakery roll) is what our server pointed us to as the thing they're known for. It tastes great. But there's too much bread for the amount of meat and cheese inside it, and that's a build problem. We had the tomatoes held, and I don't think two slices would have closed that gap.

The Marksbury Farm Brat is a genuinely unique sandwich, with gochujang aioli and sauerkraut that work well together. The brat itself came out a little overcooked. I want pop when I bite into a brat, and some juice. This one had neither.

Voodoo Pasta 2.0 is pappardelle in a blackened alfredo with bell pepper and red onion. It's tasty, and the vegetables were cooked to a perfect consistency without going soft. I found myself picking at it even when I was already stuffed. Better than average.

The Bottom Line

Here's the honest way to set your expectations. If you walk in expecting bar food, you're going to be pleasantly surprised. If you walk in expecting an elevated dining experience, you're going to break even.

The building is the reason to go. The cocktails are the reason to stay a while. The food is solid and occasionally very good, and it is worth checking out if you're in the southern part of the state.

Worth a short detour. There's a lot of other places in New Albany I want to try before I come back to this one, and that's not a knock so much as a statement about how much is happening on that street.