If you haven’t been to Walnut Hills this month, you may have missed the recent opening of Son & Garden—a new bar that resembles a greenhouse more than an average cocktail lounge.
Plants line the walls and ceilings at Son & Garden, a botanical oasis created by owner Joey Cromwell to honor his late ancestor. Cromwell’s great-uncle, Arthur Sherman Jr., owned and operated Sherman’s Flower Shop on Gilbert Avenue, which was open for 79 years until his passing.
A look inside Son & Garden, a cocktail bar in Walnut Hills. | Photo provided by Joey Cromwell
“I have a lot of roots in the Walnut Hills area. I grew up here for some time. I have five or six family members that actually still live right down Melrose. And a lot of people in the neighborhood were customers of Sherman’s, one of the oldest African-American-owned flower shops, which was passed down to my uncle from his parents.” Cromwell said. “It was … a very special place to our family and to the community. This is my tribute to him.”
With 15 years of experience in the bar and hospitality industry, Cromwell always knew his dream was to open his own space, but none of the options he ever explored felt like a perfect fit.
Enter Comfort Station, a cocktail lounge that was opened by Sundry & Vice co-founder Stuart King in 2019 and then quietly closed in 2024 before going up for sale at a later date. The building just happened to be on the corner of McMillan and Melrose—the same street some of Cromwell’s relatives currently live on—and the space full of skylights and windows was perfect for the bar’s plant-forward concept.
“As soon as I walked in the door, I said, ‘this is it.’ This is where I want to do business, this is where I can see myself growing, and this is where I can see us reaching to the audience I want to cater to,” he said.
The name, Son & Garden, is a play on words; while the bar is chock-full of flowers positioned in direct sunlight, it’s also an acknowledgment of Sherman Jr. and his legacy, as Cromwell said his great-uncle “kinda always looked at me as a son.”
The patio outside of Son & Garden, a cocktail bar in Walnut Hills. | Photo provided by Joey Cromwell
The bar’s focus on plants carries over to the drinks, too. Almost every cocktail on the menu has a plant or fruit-based infusion that’s made in-house. Just a few examples of ingredients you’ll find on the menu include cucumber, grapefruit, lemongrass, ginger, elderberry, passionfruit or fresh seasonal berries. Cromwell gave particular praise to the bar’s paloma.
“I was not even a paloma drinker until my mixologist came up with our recipe. She came up to me and said ‘Joey, we need fresh ruby red grapefruit juice for the paloma,’ and I said, ‘who’s gonna drink that?’ She said ‘Just wait.’ First time I tasted it, it instantly became my go-to drink,” he said. “Now it’s funny, my bartenders tell me we go through too many ingredients just because I tell everyone to get the paloma. We’re actually going to try to put it on tap soon.”
While Cromwell’s immediate focus for the bar is adding a variety of plants, plants, and more plants, he also wants to turn the space into a community hub for all ages.
Currently, Cromwell runs the BLK Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that raises money to provide high school students from lower-income and marginalized communities in the Cincinnati area with the means to pursue post-secondary education. Scholarships are awarded to students as part of the BLK Gala, the foundation’s annual event at the 21c Museum & Hotel downtown that celebrates Black culture.
It’s that same focus on the local community that he wants to carry over to his new bar. In the future, he plans to hold an event on the last Sunday of every month focused on outreach and serving the residents of the Walnut Hills neighborhood.
“We want it to be bigger than just a bar,” he said. “This is us actually bringing the community together and raising awareness about the neighborhood … For a lot of people, Walnut Hills isn’t an area they frequent, they just stick to downtown. I want them to realize there’s a whole ‘nother world just three to four minutes away from where they typically are.”
Son & Garden opened in early March. Current hours of operation are Thursday from 4-10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.
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