POCATELLO — The entrepreneurial couple who in recent years has brought two gourmet food trucks to the Gate City is just a few weeks away from opening Brick 243, a downtown Pocatello gastropub that melds affordable, bougie pub food with the same feeling you get sitting down for Sunday dinners with family and friends.

“At Brick 243, we’re working hard to create a new kind of ‘gastro’ experience,” said Angeline Underwood, who co-owns Brick 243 as well as The Melt and Dunk Burger food trucks with her husband, Greg. “We envision it being a community hub in the heart of the city where friends, associates, business partners, families and even strangers can come together to enjoy locally crafted beers, high-end wines and unique, shareable menu options.

Brick 243 is a place where it’s easy to enjoy the communal experience of sharing a drink, a meal and a conversation with others.”

Situated on the corner of West Center Street and South Union Pacific Avenue, Brick 243 gets its name from a play on the building’s address (243 W. Center St.) and the physical characteristics of the Historic Downtown Pocatello area, which has no shortage of brick buildings. The 750-square-foot building, once the home of Tommy Barrett’s camera shop, shares the corner with the neon Buster Brown shoes sign that Pocatello’s Relight the Night committee restored and relit during the city’s Christmas parade last year.

To fully understand what the Underwoods have in store for Brick 243 and the Pocatello community, one must first know how a gastropub is different from breweries or brew pubs. At face-level, a gastropub is simple — one part gastronomy and one part pub.

By definition, gastronomy involves the process of discovering, tasting, experiencing, researching and understanding food and the sensory qualities of human sustenance as a whole. At its most basic level, gastronomy is understanding the relationship between humans and food.

Whereas the central focus for a brewery or brew pub is the serving of handcrafted or select, specialty beers, a gastropub is a restaurant first, with the food being the focal point and the beer and wine taking second stage — though that doesn’t mean the beer and wine offerings of Brick 243 will be anything less than top-notch, Angeline said.

Brick 243 aims to take the gastronomy aspect of the gastropub to the next level by making the independent process of tasting and experiencing food more communal among each person sitting at a particular table regardless of their relationships.

“Studies have shown that people who are enjoying the same food around the table are more likely to have better connections, trust and cooperation,” Angeline said. “At Brick 243, it’s all about shareable food that engages people, creates conversation and facilitates debate. At our core, we are creating a connection over a shared experience.”

The Underwoods have cooked up a menu for Brick 243 that is almost entirely shareable and, when possible, created from the highest-quality of locally sourced ingredients, be it produce from Southeast Idaho farms or homemade baguettes from Gate City bakeries. Some signature dishes include brick-style bangers and mash, charcuterie boards, sausage and peppers in a Sunday gravy, and crostini with luxurious toppings such as herbed ricotta, prosciutto, toasted walnut, truffle honey, and among others, roasted grapes.

“We like to cook high-end, beautiful food because that is what we grew up on,” Angeline said. “My family is Italian and gets together every Sunday for dinner and Greg’s family is Hispanic so when we get together with them we literally cook all day long. We both have grown up with food that you can interact with and that’s how we started imagining where we could fit into the expanding beer and restaurant market. We’re just trying to keep it simple, but elegant in a place where people can come in and get a high-quality beer or glass of wine with great-tasting food.”

Angeline continued, “Brick 243 is all about creating a dining experience that revolves around the way we eat when we’re surrounded by family. It’s everybody saying, ‘Oh did you try this,’ or ‘take some of this and let me have some of that.’ It’s so exciting for us to create something that everyone can share with one another.”

When it comes to beer and wine, the saying “quality over quantity” has never been more applicable. The best brews from Southeast Idaho breweries will constantly occupy the four beer taps at Brick 243 and a collection of bottled and canned beers will ensure there’s always something for every palate. Wines of the highest quality and thoughtfully paired with food items will make any connoisseur rejoice. And those who don’t drink alcohol can enjoy a wide variety of specialty gourmet sodas and mocktails.

And while the food and drink is the anchor of any eatery, the Underwoods have spent an equal amount of time imagining the physical characteristics and ambiance of Brick 243. Greg has handcrafted every wooden table and the custom wood-tile and waterfall bar top, local artist Nick Hottman painted all the Brick 243 logos on the building by hand and every interior feature has been hand-selected to create a warm, comfortable, inviting atmosphere.

“Greg and I both are big on creating an experience and that is what we aim to do with Brick 243,” Angeline said. “Experience is so important to us. Every picture for the walls, the paint choice, the lighting, the tables, I mean every part of this process centers around creating a unique dining experience that compliments the craftsmanship of Historic Downtown Pocatello.”

Brick 243 is set to open on Oct. 1, though the Underwoods are still working out what hours it will be open. Angeline said they are working to develop a schedule that will allow them to rotate the menu items of Brick 243, The Melt and Dunk Burger on different nights of the week. Tentatively, Brick 243 will be open in the early evening to night hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

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