The Foundry opens in Hicksville 

If you’re looking for a casual pub with elevated food and a New York City manhole-cover theme, your ship has come in. The Foundry, which opened on March 3, fulfills all those needs, and more.

The establishment is a partnership between Steve Meskisky, a North Shore hospitality veteran, and Sam Potente, whose family business, John E. Potente & Sons, deals in concrete products and cast-iron manhole frames and covers. (If you’ve ever trod New York Street at Universal Studios — or, for that matter, New York streets — you will have seen the firm’s handiwork.)

The low-slung building on Woodbury Road had been Charles Avenue Cafe, a long-standing local watering hole that closed a few years ago. The property was adjacent to Potente’s business and he was planning to tear it down to enlarge his parking lot. But Hicksville’s powers-that-be implored him not to since the eastern portion of the building had once been the town’s post office. Potente rehabbed the building and reached out to an old friend, Meskisky, a 26-year veteran of the Poll Brothers restaurant group. They had met at Cipollini in Manhasset, where the former was a regular customer and the latter was the general manager.

Before that vaunted position, Meskisky said, he’d held every possible Poll position: "Front of house, back of house — if there was a wobbly table they would use me as a shim. Everything I know I learned from George and Gillis Poll."

Among the most important lessons: Consistency is key. To that end, he and Potente hired two chefs — James Desatasio and Adelso Valle — so that despite the restaurant’s long hours (lunch six days a week and dinner seven), there would always be someone in charge. But they didn’t want to overload either the chefs or the small kitchen and so the menu all fits comfortably on one page.

Starters (most less than $24) include Foundry ribs (St. Louis style, braised with cherry peppers and garlic), clams oreganata, mussels with vermouth, fried calamari with lemon-caper sauce and wedge, Caesar, kale and beet salads. "Between the bread are a Foundry burger ($21.95), a proud construction with sautéed onions and Dijonnaise, and a Korean chicken sandwich ($19.95) with kimchi and sesame aioli. Both come with excellent house-cut fries.

Entrees include chicken Francese on the bone ($25.95), pastrami-rubbed tuna ($29.95), fried pork chop with baked apple ($38), 16-ounce rib-eye (grilled or Cajun-rubbed, $40) and two pastas, penne alla vodka ($21.95) and short-rib rigatoni ($24.95).

The partners believed that Hicksville needed The Foundry. "A lot of places around here have closed," Meskisky said. "Peppercorns, The Rabbit Foot, On the Border. We wanted to open a place for locals, but with food that would make it a destination too."

The Foundry, 120 Woodbury Rd., Hicksville, 516-342-9603, Instagram: @thefoundry120. Open Monday 3 to 10 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday, noon to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday noon to 11 p.m., Sunday noon to 9 p.m.