Thursday late afternoon/early evening my wife and I found ourselves over on the westside, and it had just been posted on Facebook that day that the Blue Pine Kitchen and Bar (Facebook page) had opened for business—so we decided to stop in for a quick bite and drink and check it out.

Blue Pine is in the building formerly occupied by Players Bar & Grill, at 25 SW Century Drive across the street from Cascade West. They had been renovated the space but exactly to what extent I don’t know—it’d been ages and ages since I saw the inside of Players (if ever, it might not have been since the John Dough’s Pizza days in that spot…) but they’ve done a nice job of combining a reclaimed-wood and reworked furniture theme with an old-school homey vibe.

The beer list is an interesting mix of good and head-scratching (they inherited some of the Players kegs as well) and the food was great. We split a burger and garlic fries from the small plate menu and really enjoyed them. Basic, yeah, but the fries come with a whipped garlic dip (literally: garlic whipped into an almost-sauce with olive oil and spinach or basil—something green but I forget which), and the burger had gourmet touches and really stood out.

And I should mention, they have frog legs on the menu. No kidding. The only other restaurant in Bend that I ever knew had frog legs was Robby J’s Bistro. I may have to order them sometime, just because.

Overall we liked it, and I expect it’ll get even better once they work out any post-Players kinks.