Harvey Wallbangers aims to provide hearty and comforting pub food in downtown Rockford
By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
Get our mobile app
ROCKFORD — The new Harvey Wallbangers in downtown delivers its own twists on its namesake drink, while offering a menu that remains approachable yet stretches beyond simple pub food.
After holding a pop-up event on 815 Day, the neighborhood bar and restaurant officially opened for business Tuesday at 519 E. State St. in downtown. The kitchen will be open from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday with the bar open until 11 p.m. on weekdays and until midnight on weekends during its soft opening week. Hours will expand later.
“The food here is not trendy. It’s not challenging. It’s not — dare I say — exciting,” chef and owner Paul Sletten said. “It’s just really good, comforting and good quality.”
The menu features a dozen different entrees with eight priced at less than $20. Each is served with a seasonal side. They include a braised beef dish with tender, slow-cooked beef tips braised in beef stock with polenta. There’s also the skate, a mild and sweet-flavored fish served in caper butter, and egg plant ravioli with slices of eggplant stuffed with artichokes, Parmesan and red pepper butter.
“It’s more of what European pub food would be like. If you were in Europe and went to a pub, you’re not going to get frozen mozzarella sticks and quesadillas like you do in a bar here,” Sletten said. “It’s going to be hearty and it’s going to be comforting.”
The restaurant’s sandwich options include a pork po boy with Cajun mayo, red onion and shoestring potatoes served with toasted French bread. There’s also Harvey Burger or chicken katsu sandwich served with kimchi mayo.
Appetizers include, among other options, candied pork bites, cheese pierogi, chopped liver, sausage or spinach toast, and home fries that you can load with candied pork, chicken gravy, cheese sauce or a fried egg.
The bar serves a variety of beers and wines, and it has five takes on the Harvey Wallbanger, a popular vodka cocktail that’s made with orange juice and the Italian liqueur Galliano.
One of Sletten’s new mixes is the Rum Banger, which mixes white and dark rum, Galliano L’Autentico, pineapple, orange, lime and coconut milk.
“It drinks somewhere between a Mai Tai and a piña colada,” Sletten said.
There’s also the Harvey Marg, which is a take on a margarita, a Harvey Manhattan, and the Harvey Milk, which adds in clarified milk punch and shares the name of the former California politician who was the first openly gay man elected to a noteworthy public office.
This is Sletten’s fourth restaurant in downtown. He also owns Abreo, 515 E. State St., which is attached to the Irish Rose building, as well as Social Charcuterie Bar & Cocktails, 509 E. State St., and Disco Chicken, 212 E. State St.
Harvey Wallbangers is located within a historic building that was the original home of Clark & Robinson Hardware Store in the 1870s. That business was a precursor to J.L. Clark, a Rockford manufacturer that’s now been in business for more than 120 years.
For more than 30 years, the space was home to the popular Irish Rose Saloon. Irish Rose opened in January 1990 and closed in February 2023 after co-owner Michael Liefheit fell ill. He died in February 2024 at age 78.
The space still has much of the same aesthetic that it did when was the Irish Rose. That’s by design. Sletten didn’t want Harvey Wallbangers to deliver a dramatic change to the look of the space. Instead, he said his goal was to make the bar and restaurant space lively again.
About | Harvey Wallbangers
Where: 519 E. State St., Rockford
Hours: 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 4 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. (Kitchen closes at 10 p.m. Hours are for the soft opening week. Will eventually extend to 2 a.m. on weekends)
On Facebook: @harveys815
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas
