The Golden Pineapple

Before The Golden Pineapple, 503 Haywood Road cycled through a recording studio, a pharmacy and a deli, then sat empty for years. Katey Ryder and Donnie Pratt, longtime Asheville bartenders, opened it inside the Baker Building, built in 1917. Dröm Construction built the bar and the shelving behind it from solid white oak. Eight beers, three wines and a single Spanish cider run on draft, the wines leaning toward natural production. House cocktails run six to fourteen dollars: The Golden Pineapple itself is bourbon, overproof rum, amaro and tepache; Wake Up Call runs blanco tequila against absinthe, jalapeño and watermelon; Rattail Daddy is a summer daiquiri on charanda rum, sweet corn and a tajín rim. The no-alcohol list gets its own name on the menu, NO BOOZE., and its own drinks, including a lavender-and-butterfly-pea gin and tonic called Mood Swing. One shooter, the Secret Mystery Shooter, comes with no listed ingredients — “who actually knows?” is the only description printed for it. TRY AN UNDERBERG!, exclamation point included, sits right beside it on the list. The kitchen runs as long as the bar does and stops when it stops. This summer the bar posted that it isn’t closing despite a DOT road expansion outside, and told regulars to go visit its neighbors Haywood Famous and DeSoto Lounge before DeSoto moves. Every October the room turns into a temporary pop-up, The Haunting of Golden Pineapple, with its own cocktail list running from the first through Halloween night.