Branson Landing’s Chameleon

Bar Louie, a new eatery with a Lake Taneycomo view, tries hard to be all kinds of bar, all at once.

Bar Louie wants to be your everything, baby.

You want a sports bar? It has 10 big flat screen TVs above the oval bar in the center of the dining room, with a few more TVs scattered throughout. You want private dining? It has space for it in back, tucked away behind a closed door. You want a martini bar? It has mixed drinks we’d never seen before (and are still drooling over). Bar Louie also has a huge patio overlooking Lake Taneycomo, the décor of a classier-than-average bar and grill and a menu of comfort food, giant sandwiches and interesting appetizers, such as Buffalo fried calamari. Yup. Bar Louie wants to be a little bit of everything, and at first glance, that looks like quite the identity crisis.

The problem with that analysis, though, is that we really did enjoy everything that was set down in front of us in our green, upholstered semi-circular booth. So even with an identity crisis and a menu that’s a bit pricier than you might want bar food to be, this chameleon of an eatery seems to know what it’s doing.

Our server was amusing and perhaps better suited for bartending than waiting tables, mostly because of his “Dude, we don’t have that apple cider crap” approach to explaining the beer menu. I visited Bar Louie with my colleague Evan Fisk, and we started by taking advantage of Bar Louie’s martini-bar personality. I got a Kokomojito, which was basically a classic mojito, only it was made with pineapple rum and had pineapple chunks muddled with a huge amount of mint. (This made me happy. The mint is my favorite part of a mojito.) I asked them to go easy on the simple syrup, and they did. It was tasty but not that much different than a typical mojito. I recommend trying one of their more unusual martinis instead. Evan ordered the Sin Zen Tea, and it kind of blew both of us away with its subtle green tea flavor with hints of fresh but not super-sweet blackberries. It was made with peach vodka, green tea liqueur, honey syrup, sage, Sprite and blackberries, and it was unlike anything we’d ever tasted before. He dubbed it “Evan-Approved” and highly recommends it.

We ordered an appetizer of hummus, tabbouleh and tzatziki sauce with pita triangles and giant slices of cucumber ($6.99). When it came out, there were two breast-like mounds of hummus and a generous portion of tzatziki (a fresh and cool yogurt sauce), but no tabbouleh (typically a cold salad of bulgur mixed with things like chopped parsley, mint and cucumbers). They didn’t have the ingredients for tabbouleh at the time, our server told us. Everything tasted great on the appetizer plate, even if it wasn’t the best hummus we’d ever had. Tzatziki always makes me smile.

For dinner, Evan ordered the Louie’s mac and cheese, a four-cheese baked dish, and added blackened chicken. After tacking on the chicken, it was a too pricey in my opinion ($12.99). It is mac and cheese, after all. However, it was delicious, sorta-smokey and rich. Evan could only eat about half of it. This ain’t no blue box.

I had one of the six burgers on the menu, the Blue Louie ($8.99). It had a big beef patty, bleu cheese, fresh raw spinach, bacon and buffalo sauce. It was heartburn on a bun, and I loved it. Not too spicy, and the spinach was a nice touch. It came with a side of lemony-peppery seasoned fries and spicy horseradish slaw.

After waiting a smidge too long for our check at the end of the meal, we decided that we could forgive the delay. We gave Bar Louie the Evan and Katie Seal of Approval. The food satisfied, and the Sin Zen Tea was worth a second (or third, or fourth) try.