In early March 2020, a few friends and I splurged on dinner at Bourbon Prime, located in the Marriott Hotel on the Wharf. We enjoyed views of the Monongahela River from our table near the fireplace as we caught up with each other’s busy lives, toasty-warm on the blustery March evening.
We talked about kids and jobs, problems and joys. We also talked about the novel coronavirus that, at the time, was creeping into the periphery of national attention.
Despite our disquiet, it was still a lovely dinner at the upscale chophouse.
The bar offers a curated list of cocktails, craft beers and bourbon (naturally). The number and variety of bottles clustered cozily together behind the bar are truly impressive.
The restaurant takes care to source foods — from cuts of beef, to greens, to salt — from local purveyors such as Abundant Life Greenhouse in Morgantown and Hawthorne Farms in Clarksburg. The menu is gastronomically poetic, with fun and delicious words like glaze, aioli and truffle peppered throughout. I don’t remember what I ate and drank at this dinner (and because the menu is changed seasonally, I couldn’t look at the menu to jog my memory), but I remember that I enjoyed it.
Three days after this dinner took place, the whole world shut down. It was the last time I would see those friends in person, or eat at a restaurant, for a very long time. I’m glad that I had the warmth and bonhomie of that dinner to look back on during the bleak years that followed. I have not been to Bourbon Prime since then. The general dining-out experience has fundamentally changed since pre-pandemic days, requiring patience with staffing and supply shortages. But as long as you have friends and a fire, you have the ingredients for a good meal and a happy memory.
EVA MURPHY is a freelance business writer for The Dominion Post. She writes a column on businesses, churches and other entities in the city. To suggestion a topic, email her at Newsroom@DominionPost.com.
