Now That's Class, Earplugs and Vegan Bar Food in Cleveland, OH

After eating one of the best vegan veggie burgers in Cleveland I found another place called "Now That's Class" which served a mixed vegan/omni menu.  The venue is akin to NY's CBGBs or the old Ron's Place in New Haven.  Punk?  Is that dating me?  Do I care?  Nope.  We walk in and I don't feel 100% out of place amongst the tats and grommets in earlobes.  I think this is more my own headspace than any thing that anyone said or did to make us feel that way.  

There's a guy telling jokes on stage and I think, "This is alright." He finishes up and we make our way to the bar for a couple of beers and a menu.  There aren't many tables and this isn't by any means a restaurant.  

Looking forward from our bar seats.  Bar runs along the right and stage is to the left.

My buddy looking heavenward wondering what I've gotten him into this time.

I ask for a menu and in true creative style and restaurant economics 101 I was handed a brown paper bag with a hand written menu.

Menu.  Printed written daily.

The food storage fridge.  Like I said, this isn't really a restaurant.  Perhaps there's a walk-in in the basement.

The kitchen is a convection oven on the back of the bar.  I can see myself in the mirror.

The stage was about 4 feet from where we were standing.  Earplugs are $1.00.  Damn.  I left my pair in the plane.

The band started playing and yes, loud became the operative word.

Fried tofu sticks.  Buffalo style.  Vegan wings sauce and ranch with celery and carrot.

The tofu sticks were as good as any I have had.  The light breading offered a different contrast to the tofu but not a real crunch.  The buffalo hot sauce was pretty standard and the vegan ranch was cooling.  Pretty great bar food but you can't be looking for haute cuisine.  This all is great food to munch on while chugging a couple of beers and I wish all bars would recognize that vegans drink.  It's not cooked here but sold by someone, I think they said at the Westside Market, and reheated in the convection oven.  Works for me.

Ah, flash photography in a dark bar.  But you can see the empanada and rice and beans and enchilada pretty clearly.

The empanada was clearly the best and did have a crispy crunchy dough.  The enchilada was a very soft tortilla and there was almost no differentiation between the outside and the filling, whereas with the empanada it was really a nice bite, crunch, smooshy potato and spinach filling.

I just had to try this stuff.  The whole bottle was $5.00.  That worked out to $2.50 a swig as that's pretty much all I could take.  Sweet would be the operative word.  And cheap.

The quiet area is outside where a few more tables are located.