This restaurant off Summer Street in Bethel has a little bit of everything for its customers.
“We got a great mix of what people like, we got the dance floor, we got darts, pool, cribbage, checkers, chess,” owner Barry Hallett says.
Although the place is known as the nightlife spot in town, Hallett said there’s much more to the restaurant, which he’s owned for 15 years.
One of the signature items on the menu is prime rib, sold every Thursday for $14 ($9 off its original price). A variety of haddock dishes, ribs, burgers, chicken parmesan, chicken pot pie and pizza (last two both made from scratch) are some other notable choices on the menu.
Outside of two generics, all the beer on tap is brewed in Maine, including ones from Sunday River Brewing Company and Steam Mill Brewery, which are both local. The bar also has real root beer made by Shipyard on tap, which is a go-to for Hallett.
The Funky is open in the summer Thursday through Saturday, 4 p.m.-1 a.m., with food served from 5 to 8 p.m. Anyone still hungry after 8 is in luck, though. Thin crust pizza is sold during the restaurant’s late night hours, courtesy of Maria’s Pizza of Gloucester, Mass., Hallett’s hometown.
Pizza is also served on Monday nights when the Funky is open for the dart league. Everyone is welcome to join in on the fun.
Friday night is karaoke, and on Saturday night the DJ will take requests from the crowd.
The restaurant also has bands that play, but no matter the music, people are almost always having fun.
“Usually we have a packed place full of people dancing,” Hallett said.
The Gloucester native has been coming to Bethel since the early ’90s but still travels back to Massachusetts Monday to Wednesday so he can work in his real estate business, the other hat he wears outside the kitchen. He returns home Thursday so he can get back to work at the “red barn,” the color he envisioned the place when he first considered taking it over.
“My wife, my sister and myself came up with the name ‘Funky Red Barn.’ It was an old barn, it was blue when I bought it, but we were going to change it to red and it’s definitely funky,” Hallett said.
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