Here’s your first look at the cocktails, food and surprisingly good desserts at Queen Park Social

Queen Park Social, an 18,000-square-foot bar, restaurant and entertainment venue, is currently in its soft opening phase in LoSo*.

The family-friendly adult playground joins a strong lineup in an already thriving hangout destination home to Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, Sugar Creek Brewing, Great Wagon Road Distillery, Broken Spoke and Good Road Ciderworks.

Queen Park is a perfect complement to the area’s existing laid back social scene but will also shake things up with its all-in-one experience under one roof and late-night 2 a.m. last call on the weekends.

The space essentially splits in the middle with a bar and restaurant section to the left, games to the right and a dominant 30-seat U-shaped bar in the center.

It also has two private rooms for parties, outdoor patios on either side of the building and big roll-up garage doors to open everything up.

The food menu is Tex-Mex with a classic American slant.

This means items like nachos alongside cheese fries, tacos alongside burgers and an apple taquito dessert that combines the best of both worlds. After 10 p.m. they switch to a late-night menu of wings and pizza, and you’ll also want to keep an eye out for brunch 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Andrew, Agenda’s resident eater of all things, helped me tackle the main menu. (The father of two also spotted high chairs immediately and confirmed Queen Park’s kid friendliness for future trips with the family.)

We ordered the brussel sprouts with balsamic glaze ($7), loaded cheese fries ($10.75), barbacoa tacos (2 for $10.50), the Queen Park Burger ($13) and both desserts because life is meant to be lived.

All the sauces are made in house, the fries are hand cut and even the waffle cones for the ice cream are made fresh daily.

You might think ice cream on a bar menu is a total snooze but Queen Park’s is a show stopper with a mound of ice cream balanced on a pile of caramel sauce and homemade peanut brittle and then topped with a dramatic house-made waffle cone. Winner.

At the bar you’ll find beer, wine, liquor and specialty cocktails.

We dove straight into four cocktails:

Pretty in Pink ($7) – champagne, pomegranate juice, lime

Fancy Yancey ($10) – Woodford Reserve, lemonade, pomegranate juice, cherry

On Your Mark ($9) – Maker’s Mark, Cointreau, simple syrup, mint leaves, sweet tea

Cousin Eddy ($8) – Deep Eddy’s grapefruit vodka, grapefruit juice, salt

All of them were simple, straight forward and dangerously drinkable. I swore off bourbon after destroying it for myself in college but found that the Fancy Yancey was actually my favorite of the bunch and drank like Kool-Aid. Watch out.

Of course, Queen Park’s standout is a collection of interactive games that encourage visitors to unplug and socialize.

Games include shuffle board, ping pong, Skee ball, pop-a-shot, classic board games and eight lanes of string pin bowling.

The mural in the background is by local artists Matt Moore, Matt Hooker and Tucker Sward.

Queen Park Social is in its soft opening phase. Keep an eye on their social channels for a grand opening announcement. You’ll find them at 4125 Yancey Road across the street from OMB. Just look for the vintage Queen Park drive-in sign.

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*I know some of you want to email me with: “Ugh, I hate the name LoSo. Call it something else.” Too bad. That’s what people call it. Maybe if we’re lucky, the alternate neighborhood name of Queen Park will finally stick instead.