Versatility and quirkiness is built into the DNA of The New 63 Social House & Eatery, a recent addition to Spokane's downtown culinary corridor. Housed in a historic building with numerous past lives — including as an Italian restaurant and a movie theater — New 63 also features an eclectic menu synthesizing American comfort foods and Asian-inspired flavor combinations.
"We're not going for something that's ultra-traditional," says Casey Garland, operating partner for New 63 and director of operations for SA Group restaurants, which opened New 63 in March.
The wings ($15), for example, take a pan-culinary approach with a diverse choice of sauces: Bachan's barbecue sauce is from Japan; the maple and turmeric sauce leans toward Indian cuisine; and the distinctly red, peppery Buffalo sauce takes its name from a Buffalo, New York, bar.
Pizza at New 63 features rice flour, more typically found in Asian cooking, in addition to wheat flour (a gluten-free cauliflower crust is also available for no upcharge). The toppings run the gamut from traditional pepperoni ($14) or roasted vegetables ($16) to assorted Asian ingredients. Try the Thai curry ($16) with yellow curry cream sauce, potato cubes, chicken, carrots and red peppers; the spicy edamame ($16) with creamy wasabi, onions and tomatoes; or the barbecued pork ($17) with Korean chili glaze and slaw.
New 63 kept pizza on its menu as a nod to the building's history, says Garland, who drove much of the menu development along with operating partner Hillary Yarno and SA Group founder Rakesh Kaushal.
The Main Avenue building formerly housed Rocky Rococo Pizza and Pasta. That popular eatery operated from 1985 to 2020, and was known for its "pan-style" rectangular-shaped pizza and all-you-can-eat salad bar.
Although Rocky's old salad bar structure was beyond salvage and had to be removed, says Garland, other remnants of its tenure in the space have been preserved, including brick walls and mirrored window frames along an elevated back seating area.
The restaurant's new owners transformed a former order-up station into an informal bar area, adding the requisite roped-off boundary for the over-21 crowd, plus new tile and wood paneling.
An antique booth with leaded glass windows still stands guard near the restrooms. Formerly a kids' eating area, it now has adult-height seating and reupholstered cushions. Nearby, a lighted barber pole also remains, but with material bearing the new restaurant's art deco-style logo instead of the traditional swirling stripes.
"We didn't just want to totally erase the history of the building itself," Garland says.
Rocky Rococo's quirky, open-walled "house" structure still stands in the center of New 63's main dining area, but has been denuded of its fake hanging plants and repainted a butterscotch gold color.
Also gone is a synthetic Christmas tree that stood year-round, 200 to 300 pounds of bark and nearly any trace of red, green and white paint, colors of the Italian flag. The only surviving red is on embossed tin ceiling tiles in the dining and lounge area, which once connected to another bygone restaurant, Cyrus O'Leary's.
The lounge, meanwhile, features architectural elements from the building's initial purpose as a theater. Between then and its tenure as Rocky's, it housed a succession of businesses including a women's clothing store. Before that it was a modern movie house, initially called Cinema 66 and later Cinema 63, which inspired part of New 63's name. Originally, the building was the Ritz Theatre, built in 1924.
Historical remnants of those movie theater days are also visible, like inset lighting along the floor of various elevations, marquee lighting in the dining area, and ultra-high ceilings. Vintage 1940s projectors and boxes of invoices and pay stubs are piled in an upstairs storage area the team has yet to renovate.
"This was not a place that was well maintained, in any way at all, which is sad," Garland says. "And that's why we wanted to keep the stuff that we could, because you just don't see a lot of older buildings that have some of the character that this place has."
Taking over or creating businesses in existing buildings (versus new construction) is just one element of the SA Group's process, says Garland.
The company also manages two Spokane Valley spots, Boston's Pizza and The Ref sports bar, plus The Pizza Co. on the North Side and locations of Mango Tree in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene.
For New 63, however, the group wanted to do something a little different, especially with the menu.
"We all love sushi but don't want to go into the deep end of that pool," Garland says, adding that sushi and ramen, for example, are already well-represented downtown.
They also wanted more flexibility, and thus employed a modular menu approach.
"The rice is the base, so if something's not working, it's easy to swap out the parts and pieces," he says.
New 63 offers eight rice bowls ($15-$19). The gochujang chicken bowl ($17) features the ubiquitous Korean spice and is Garland's favorite, while the coconut bowl ($19) offers a choice of breaded, pan-fried shrimp or salmon. All of the bowls, including the vegetarian Japanese curry bowl ($15), allow diners to add proteins ($2-$4).
Noodle bowls and vegetarian power bowls take a similar approach, with variations on ingredients offered elsewhere on the menu. Try the Emperor noodle bowl ($17) with marinated beef, red peppers and shisito peppers, or the teriyaki cauliflower power bowl ($16) with roasted vegetables, quinoa and avocado.
The menu, including its craft cocktail list, is still evolving, Garland says. Changes will be driven by what the group decides should happen in order to continuously improve, and because of customer feedback.
"With this place I want the menu to be as fluid as possible and if, you know, enough people are reacting a certain way to something, there's got to be some truth to it," Garland says. "We need to be able to pivot and not be married to doing things exactly how we're doing it [now]." ♦
The New 63 Social House & Eatery • 520 W. Main Ave. • Open Sun-Thu 11 am-10 pm, Fri-Sat 11 am-midnight • facebook.com/thenew63socialhouse • 509-598-8922
