Bennett: Want a beer? At The Wall in Orange, you get it yourself

The Wall, tucked into the northeast corner of the Orange Circle, was originally going to be named The Patio. And while the final product does have an ample outdoor seating area at which to enjoy beers and food, emphasizing the bar-without-a-bar’s true selling point makes it a restaurant well timed for this political moment.

While walls used to make me think of Pink Floyd’s seminal album and the subsequent performance of it at the tearing down of the one separating East and West Berlin, the word has taken on another special significance this year. After all, the building of a long one along the Mexican border became a central promise during this year’s divisive election rhetoric. (The suggestion to build one between California and the rest of the country also mounted soon after Nov. 8.)

But The Wall’s owners — Dan Martinez, Ryan Sauter and Zac Henson — weren’t trying to make any kind of political statement when they started building The Wall last year. And in the end, their wall, which opened to the public a few months ago, isn’t one that divides. In fact, it plans to bring people together through a very democratic process.

That’s because The Wall’s wall is a self-serve beer station — a high-tech, first-in-O.C. lineup of 50-plus rotating craft beer taps that lets you skip the bartender and get straight to pouring yourself a cold one.

The whole restaurant runs on a proprietary computer program designed by Henson, a Chapman University alum who developed the software as a resident in the college’s Launch Labs entrepreneurship incubator program.

For now, there are still servers, who drop food and drink menus on your table and punch in your order on pocket-sized tablets. But when the whole pour-your-own system is up and running in a few weeks, you’ll be given a chip-implanted bracelet that’s attached to your credit card, letting you walk right up to the tap you want and unlock access to pull the handle. Whether you get a taster or a full glass, you’ll only be charged for the number of ounces you extract.

I’ve been thinking of it like a Yogurtland or Dave and Busters, except with local craft beer.

Since its soft opening in September, the tap list has remained an ever-shifting, highly selective cross-section of California beer, from Breaker Pale Ale by Huntington Beach’s Beachwood and IPAs from Anaheim’s Unsung Brewing to sours from San Diego’s Bitter Bros. and saisons by San Francisco’s Almanac. It’s a reflection of the local craft pedigree both in the kitchen and on the floor: Chef Dave Larsen used to run C4 Deli and was brewmaster at Haven Brewing before leaving to be a brewer at Cismontane; general manager Mike Long came from Santa Ana gastropub Chapter One.

Like the self-pour wall itself, The Wall’s menu creates bridges more than it divides. Larsen’s menu celebrates the diversity of flavors found at the Orange International Street Fair and includes imaginative updates on street foods from Latin America, Asia and beyond.

Chicken wings come doused in either spicy Korean gochujang or chicken tikka masala sauce, arguably two of the world’s greatest meat coatings. Using butter lettuce instead of tortillas, a pair of well-stuffed short rib tacos ooze with their sweet Coke braise. And the Frito Pie almost bleeds through its paper serving tray, the chunky chili, poached egg, house-made goo-cheese and herbaceous cilantro crema creating a casserole version of the nostalgic Texas treat.

Favorite small bites from Vietnam, Spain, Peru and Italy are also on the menu, so a full posse can easily eat their way around the world without ever leaving their seat.

When it comes to dessert, the chalkboard walls are scrawled with weekly ice cream and spicy popsicles flavors (one week: pistachio saffron and lemon ginger, respectively), but instead you should get the Wallasada, a Larsen-ified version of the hard-to-find Hawaiian-Portuguese coconut-cream-filled doughnut known as malasada.

With thoughtful food and dozens of new beers to explore, The Wall aims to be a place to sip and savor, not get hammered. To prove it, the smart devices you’ll soon be given also use information about your height and weight to portion the amount of beer you’re able to pour per visit. After it determines a body mass index, the bracelet cuts off pouring right before you reach your legal alcohol limit, ensuring a DUI-free drive home.

It might not have been part of its original intentions, but The Wall is exactly the kind of bar-less bar that Orange County needs right now, a place where all flavors of beer and food from all countries are housed under one do-it-yourself concept.

Yet, The Wall does not take its name from a Pink Floyd album, nor is it meant to present any political opinion on walls. According to a story in the Chapman University newspaper, The Panther, the name comes from, yes, the wall of taps and TVs that is its main draw, but also a quote in the book “Cassie Draws the Universe,” by P.S. Baber.

“There are four kinds of people in the world, Ms. Harper,” it reads. “Those who build walls. Those who protect walls. Those who breach walls. And those who tear down walls.”

The owners of The Wall built a beer-filled one in order to tear more down.

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SARAH BENNETT is a freelance journalist covering food, drink, music, culture and more. She is the former food editor at L.A. Weekly and a founding editor of Beer Paper L.A. Follow her on Twitter @thesarahbennett.