Now that there’s no smoking in Rhode Island bars, eateries that look to be bars first and restaurants second are getting a closer look. Even a place with a nominally separate smoking section used to be grimace-inducing if it was behind the low partition at your back. Don’t know about you, but I like my smoked mackerel prepared by methods other than transporting it through a blue haze.

Blake’s Tavern, down the street from Trinity Rep, always seemed to me a cordial place to linger over a draft, but I never ate there because of the reasons cited above. It closed for renovations last May under new owners, who took their time about it and didn’t reopen until December. It’s the family operation that used to run Park Avenue Pizza in Woonsocket.

Walking in, your initial impression is that nothing much has changed. The long bar still dominates, with TVs, sports paraphernalia, and conversations packing the place like trophies on a mantle. The atmosphere remains as laidback as when you could sometimes see original owner Carolyn Blake MacAndrew’s wire-haired Airedale terrier Travis, a.k.a. Mr. Knucklehead the Logo Boy, lapping his beer from a saucer. But there’s still no clear indication of dining areas in the back, so potential walk-ins tempted by the outside marker board are likely dissuaded if the front room looks full.

The back bar has a pool table and a few tables. Adjoining are two small dining rooms, one looking like a boy’s bedroom, papered with 1950s cars and motel signs. We took a table in "the library," where the wallpaper depicts book-packed shelves, a tree-saving step better than lining a room with the sad matched set of bought but unread yard sale classics. (You can check out all of this online at www.blakestavern.com, complete with snazzy 360-degree virtual tours of each room.)

Blake’s describes its offerings as taking " ‘pub grub’ to the next level, but without going ‘foo foo’ like so many bars have." The appetizers have many bar standards, from nachos and quesadillas to spicy wings. Added to that are crab cakes ($8.45) and a bruschetta ($6.45) topped with sliced tomatoes and mozzarella. I thought about checking out their signature "Blake’s Famous Knucklehead Chili" — don’t worry about Travis; the new owners bought only the name and goodwill — but had a better idea.

Not wanting to order pasta in a pub, getting the mozzarella sticks ($5.25) for their self-proclaimed "great marinara sauce" seemed a good idea. The sauce was tangy, interestingly seasoned, and would have indeed gone nicely over a plate of penne. Three of their five pastas, oriented toward taste buds rather than waistlines, have cream sauces.

For her main dish, Johnnie had the Margarita chicken ($10.25), which involved marinating the chicken breast in tequila and lime before charbroiling. It was good — moist and smoky, served with a puddle of the flavorful marinade for sopping pieces. Green beans, the accompanying vegetable of the day, were steamed, and the preamble side salad had a tangy house balsamic vinaigrette. At first, I mistakenly pointed to the Philly steak, instead of my intended Bourbon Street sirloin ($14.95), a house special, when I ordered. But our helpful waitress, Tina, quickly dashed to the kitchen and corrected the situation before my arteries started closing at the prospect of melted cheese on a heap of sliced beef.

My 12-ounce sirloin was too chewy, but an inch-thick, a deserved trade-off since my jaw got the exercise I’d otherwise neglected that day. Piled on were raw peppers and onions, and a few sliced mushrooms. My sweet potato fries were a welcome treat. Ribs are also available from the grill.

If you come for lunch, there are scads of sandwiches to choose from. Among the steak sandwiches is one prepared "a la Mama" ($7.45), character-broiled and topped with a splash of herbed garlic butter. Along with the burgers, they are served with choice of pasta salad, potato salad, coleslaw, or seasoned fries. There are nine chicken sandwiches, ranging from a fajita wrap, chicken cordon bleu (with ham and Swiss), one inspired by Buffalo wings, and a sandwich version of the Margarita chicken described above.

Oreo cookie pie is the most popular of their desserts, which aren’t house-made. We grimaced at the cocoa butter-white chocolate mousse, considered strawberry cheesecake, and settled on an intriguing concept called chocolate cobbler ($3.95). A scoop of vanilla ice cream came on top of brownie-esque molten chocolate cake, which was drowned in chocolate syrup in a cocktail glass. The brownie was quite sweet, even without the syrup, so this one’s for hedonists rather than pre-diabetics.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at bill@billrod.com.