Click on the photos to "walk" through Forest & Main. We hope they hold you over for the next few weeks before we open. See you soon.

Apologies for the silence, we’ve had little time to devote to our blog lately.

The last month or so has been a whirlwind at Forest & Main. We’ve built walls and bars, tiled floors, installed glycol systems, and on and on.

Our chef has moved to town, we’ll formally introduce her soon. In addition to being an expert cook she’s now a fine tile layer, painter, shellacer and all around handy-woman. We would not be where we are without her tireless help.

We are very close to opening, it won’t be long now, we promise. Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm, we can’t wait to have you all in for a pint and a meal.

Until then,

Forest & Main

A few pictures of our progress.

The bar is just about finished, now to get some hand-pumps installed. Construction will begin on the kitchen shortly, it’s tiny, shouldn’t be a huge job. We were excited to have been visited this past weekend by two chef friends from NYC, they’re in the early stages of planning our menu. They had me at “braised lamb shanks.”

We were very excited to have recently made Michael Klein’s list of upcoming restaurants in the Philadelphia area. http://articles.philly.com/2011-09-01/news/30029308_1_new-restaurants-beer-bar-bumper-crop/2 .

We’re still waiting on our licenses, should have word by the end of September. In the meantime we’re working hard to finish the work on the pub and get the few remaining pieces we need for the brewery.

It’s crunch time now!

Our brewery room is just about finished, a great relief. The concrete floors were poured a few weeks back and they drain beautifully (as the recent heavy rains and an open skylight proved). We’ve painted the ceiling and walls with a mold resistant paint, in our F&M red of course, and hung the FRP paneling. We can now hose things off without fear of water damage, important for a brewery. Here are a few pictures of our recent work-day.

Gerard starts hanging the FRP. Good-bye pink walls!Our lion gets in on the fun. She's finaly looking like a brewery.

Gerard threads in the final piece of trim.

Finished, now to move the brewery in!A pint of Daisy Dukes to finish the job.

We've also included a sneak peek video of the bar building, we can't show you the whole bar, that would ruin the surprise.

Don’t forget, we will be at the Fonthill Museum in Doylestown this Friday as part of their “Bring on the Belgians” event. Come out and taste some brand new beers. http://www.forestandmain.com/events/

Forest Ave. obstructed by our cement delivery.

At last, a floor, almost.

Our porch has been bare since we’ve moved in, we carry chairs out, or sit on the steps often, but we’ve long craved something permanent. Every Victorian house needs a picnic table on the porch, right? I didn’t feel like searching craigslist, haggling, and scheduling a time to pick up, so I set out to build one. Thanks to the internet there are plenty of plans available.

I picked up the wood, and really doubted that it would equal a full sized picnic table when I saw it in a pile.

This is after the cuts were made.

The table top came together easily.

The legs went on.

And the rest was easy. Now to get her over to the porch and enjoy a beer.

A sad note, our beloved angle grinder ground it's final edge last night. After finishing all two floors of the pub she just didn't have much life left in her. I'd been holding the cord at just the right angle to make her work lately, and last night she surprised me with a blast of smoke from the cord. You'll be missed, thanks for your service.

Two floors finished, sanding a few 2x4 edges just wasn't in the cards.

The entry way floors prior to sanding.The next room had an ancient layer of paint, glue, and who knows what else, all around the perimiter of the room. This nasty mix gummed up our sanders in no time. We scraped, peeled, and sanded, for a long, long time.

With the floors fully sanded we were excited to get them finished. A few coats of poly later and we had ourselves some nice, rustic, wood floors. It was a great stroke of luck that we wound up with floors that matched the character of F & M so perfectly.

The bare wood floors.

Sanded and stained.

And now to pick the wall color...

Patching the StairwayGerard Hard at Work

With the patching finished we pulled out all of the carpet with the help of some friends. Those carpets were full of dust, we quickly got used to wearing respirators and having plastic sheeting in all of the doors.

Boomer Getting Rid of Some Subflooring.

Our Big Pile of Carpet.With the carpets gone and the walls patched we focused on sanding the floors. As one who enjoys doing things the hard way I decided to do them by hand, with an angle grinder…

This Little Guy is Tenacioius.

Rustic wood floors!