There are people who eat their meals and people who drink them, and you can see who they are at Palate Craft & Eatery. With wisdom gleaned from already running two successful gastropubs — REAL a gastropub and Brew’d — restaurateur Troy Terorotua and wife Lisa Kim, with partner Pat Kashani, opened Palate Craft & Eatery in downtown Honolulu to give each camp its due.

At Brew’d in particular, Kim said, they watched how different groups of people segregated themselves by time slots, with mature diners and foodies congregating early to avoid the later, noisy bar scene.

The solution at Palate?

The answer for every problemo these days: Build a wall!

Actually, the wall on the site of the former Soul de Cuba already existed, but works nicely in separating the bar from the dining room, which is good for a food crowd that likely benefits from alcohol sales on the other side of the wall. Given the recent surge in restaurant pricing in Honolulu, food here is noticeably more affordable. Small bites that easily serve two to three run about $8; large bites are $10 to $12.

If you want to know more about the bar, visit 808ne.ws/palateeatery for Jason Gene­gabus’ take on it. I prefer more solid sources of sustenance.

Having been in this business for a while, Terorotua has a pretty good idea of what his patrons love, and sure enough, the menu entices with a roster of dishes with broad appeal. Start with a bar-style take on bacon ($5) and eggs ($5). The ancho chili candied bacon and deviled ham deviled eggs are separate items, but it makes sense to order them together. The soft, sweet, jerkylike bacon is especially irresistible, so much so that for your body’s sake you’d probably wish this were not the case.

The menu is different at each of Tero­rotua’s establishments, but the one constant is the Brussels sprouts ($6), still one of my favorites. The humble vegetable is made more seductive with a saute of bacon and a splash of red wine vinaigrette.

More veggies are available in the form of a roasted beet salad ($9) with pecans, blue cheese and Jameson vinaigrette, and a kale Caesar ($9) with a blue cheese Caesar dressing more assertive than most. It would help to tear the chewy kale into smaller, bite-size pieces to spare diners’ jaws from a workout.

There is one way to drink your meal in the dining room. A beer onion mushroom soup ($8) is thick and heavy with layers of smoked mozzarella and blue cheese. A little goes a long way. Like much of the food here, salt levels are amped up in anticipation of a beer-drinking crowd.

The bar is ever present in preparations such as bourbon-sauteed cremini mushrooms ($8) served over creamy polenta; beer-infused sausage ($8) served over lentils that pick up the ale perfume; and a stout burger topped with stout tomato jam ($12).

There’s always a mac-and-cheese dish ($9) of the week. When I visited it was a smoky mozzarella with crumbled chorizo and garlic breadcrumbs. It could have used a lot more chorizo.

Larger bites consist of meat and fish dishes, and the prices aren’t much larger than for the varied small bites. Furikake fish and chips with Sriracha tartar sauce is $10, and a two-layer fried chicken sandwich with Frank’s red hot sauce and cilantro coleslaw is $10. The sauce was pooled toward the center of the sandwich, so fire eaters might consider asking for extra sauce to coat the entire pieces of chicken.

Compared with other dishes, a trio of pulled pork sliders ($10) wasn’t particularly thrilling, but I did marvel over the Reuben quesadillas ($10) with all the flavor of the traditional sandwich and none of the mess. Not a lot of pastrami is layered between the flour tortillas, but what is there does make the right impression.

If you somehow manage to save room for dessert, there’s a decadent maple bacon-doughnut bread pudding ($6), or cheesecake of the day ($7) from neighboring Cake Envy, which is turning into a primary beneficiary of the restaurant boom in downtown Hono­lulu.

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.