Woodwork Celebrates One Year of Football Fanaticism, With Taste

If football is the world’s common language, then is fluent. And for all you monoglots, that means soccer.

The footie-mad bar on Vanderbilt celebrates its first anniversary tonight with food and drink specials, a Bob Marley tribute, World Cup photos, a slideshow of 2010 antics, prize giveaways and general carousing. The party kicks off at 9 p.m., emceed by bar owner Ross Greenberg.

“I’ve been playing football all my life, but when I traveled round the world as a chef, I realized football was the common language,” said Greenberg, 33.

As a 10-year resident of Prospect Heights, Greenberg used to walk past the space now occupied by Woodwork and yearn to open a “European-style, food-friendly” bar there. On January 18, 2010, he finally did so.

Now, he said, “People come for soccer, people come for beer, and people come for my food, in that order.”

Greenberg trained at the Culinary Institute of America and honed his craft under chefs like Marcus Samuelsson, formerly of Aquavit. His menu at Woodwork emphasizes organic and regionally-sourced fare, “good gastro-pub food,” he said, that his staff manages to prepare with little more than two electric convection ovens, a hot plate and a waffle iron, right behind the bar. The truffle mac and cheese ($10 or $13 with pulled pork or chorizo) is a popular choice.

Craft beers, abundant whiskies and bar specialities like the Pickle Back (a shot of whiskey chased by a shot of pickle juice, $5 with well whiskey or $7 with Jameson) account for most of the booze options.

The bar sells about 500 to 600 Pickle Backs a month, reckons Chris Almeida, Woodwork’s general manager.

Almeida, Greenberg and bartender Kevin Mitchell demonstrated correct Pickle Back procedure on Wednesday afternoon during the Blackburn Rovers versus Tottenham Hotspur game.

“The salt brings out the sweet,” Greenberg said after the shots were drained. “That’s why it works. It’s like a cheeseburger in your mouth.”

Greenberg supports Barcelona and Arsenal above all, and games featuring those teams are always shown on Woodwork’s three 50-inch television screens, as well as via projector. A match pitting both those teams against each other on Feb. 16 is likely to draw a larger than usual crowd, Greenberg said - perhaps 100 people on a Wednesday afternoon.

Beyond the bar, Greenberg even manages and plays on his own team, the Brooklyn Gunners. The team is semi-amateur, one rung below the professional level: “very competitive,” Greenberg said.

Liverpool and Chelsea also find strong support at Woodwork, and those teams are scheduled to play each other this Sunday. Partygoers who close out the anniversary celebration on Saturday could pretty much stay put for the game. As the bar serves food until 4 a.m. each night, it’s open almost all hours during weekends. (On weekdays, the bar opens at about 2pm.)

Party or not, Woodwork’s regulars are certain to show up for Sunday’s match.

“It’s like our Superbowl,” Greenberg said.

(But if you're an American football fan, don't worry. Woodwork tomorrow evening.)