After months of neighborhood curiosity, Trudie's Tavern, the long-anticipated bar-and-grill from the team behind Gertie and Gertrude's, has officially opened at 524 Court Street in Carroll Gardens. The corner spot, which replaces longtime tenant Buttermilk Channel, seats roughly 100 diners and opens at 4 p.m., setting itself up as a family-friendly neighborhood tavern that happens to pour martinis and shuck oysters. Early evenings lean into comfort food, with rotisserie chicken, a pretzel "bread service" and other crowd-pleasing plates meant to turn the room into a local go‑to.
The menu doubles down on that theme. There is a brioche-enriched pretzel service with house honey mustard, a large-format latke for two, schmaltz-fried rice, egg noodles with ragu and a shareable lamb schnitzel. The dining room is dressed in dark wood cladding, white tablecloths, rattan chairs with blush upholstery and a mural by local artist Izzy Bulling. About thirty seats wrap the corner, with roughly seventy more inside. The rotisserie half-bird is listed around $38 and comes with roasted potatoes and a dill-flecked cucumber salad, and the beverage program keeps wines by the glass under $20, with most bottles below $100, according to Grub Street.
The Room and the Team
Trudie's is led by partners Nate Adler, Rachel Jackson and Emily Tripp, with Eli Friedman as chef de cuisine and Meribelle Crisostomo overseeing both the beverage program and the front of house as beverage director and general manager. The group bills the project as the newest sibling to its other Brooklyn restaurants and leans again on the "Jew-ish" comfort-food throughline that runs through those spots. The restaurant's address and launch details are listed on its website at Trudie's Tavern, and the concept has already been tagged as a neighborhood opening to watch by The Infatuation.
A Nod to the Neighborhood
The partners have said they wanted to combine a sense of occasion with the ease of a comfortable neighborhood restaurant, describing Trudie's as a kind of homage to a Keith McNally spot while they "take the bones" of the former tenant and build something sustainable for the long haul. Brunch is slated to roll out later this summer and will include a fried chicken-and-waffles plate that tips its hat to Buttermilk Channel's legacy, and the team plans to offer rotisserie birds to go that neighbors will be able to preorder. Those details, along with the group's vision for an accessible sit-down tavern, are outlined in reporting from Grub Street.
What to Know Before You Go
Bar and lounge seats are being held for walk-ins, while the larger dining room takes reservations for groups, a setup clearly designed for both last-minute martini runs and planned family dinners. The team also expects to sell plenty of birds to go as neighbors preorder. The restaurant's website, listed at Trudie's Tavern, maintains an email signup and basic contact information for preorder questions. Local newsletters had been tracking a mid-June opening target, framing Trudie's as part of a broader summer wave of neighborhood spots, according to The Gowanaut.
