Ben's Review
We went to Grumpy's for our friend Josh's birthday and to watch the NCAA tournament games that night. The building that Grumpy's occupies used to be a Majors, before that it was Big City Tavern, and before that it was the KFAN: The Restaurant. Needless to say there's probably some pretty bad karma about the location, we'll see how long Grumpy's can stay open.
The bar doesn't look much different from when I was there last, when it was still Majors. Pretty standard looking suburban bar with a separate room with pool tables, darts, and Golden Tee. Its an enormous building, I'm pretty sure there's a second level but I've never been up there.Grumpy's is a pretty good place to watch sports because they've got a lot of TVs all over the place.
The list of tap beers is great, I was drinking Flat Earth Element 115 that night. You'll recall I tried to enjoy the same beer during a recent outing at Ngon's when I forgot my ID. This time I had my ID and the beer was great; you can't go wrong with local beer on tap in a frosty mug.
I ordered a cheeseburger with pepper jack cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce with fries, typical bar food. The menu is huge though, and I had trouble deciding they've got several varieties of sandwiches and burgers to choose from.
My burger came out and it was hot and cooked medium, as requested. The fries weren't good, I can't put my finger on exactly what I don't like about the fries at some places, but this was one of those places. I can say that they were really greasy and kind of soggy, very disappointing. The burger was great, albeit a little messy, but that comes with the territory of a BBQ bacon cheeseburger.
UPDATE: After I saw the picture of my burger below, I realized I had mistaken the fries at Grumpy's for another place. I got waffle fries at Grumpy's and they were very good.
Our server was decent, and she didn't have a problem managing the separate tabs for all the groups of people (there were a dozen people or so at any given time).
I don't think I'll be going back to Grumpy's anytime soon for a meal, but I wouldn't be against stopping by for a beer (or six) and catching a football game.
The ratings:
- Service: Service was OK. Sometimes it took our server awhile to check back in for more drinks.
- Food: My burger was good, the fries not so much. I also thought Erin's cheese dip was gross.
- Drinks: Great tap beer selection and fully stocked bar, I didn't look into happy hour deals.
- Ambiance: Not much ambiance to set Grumpy's apart from any other bar in the area.
- Price: I think my burger was $8-$9 and the beers were ~$5, right on expectations.
- Convenience: Plenty of parking, and only a mile or so north of 36, so its fairly accessible.
Erin's Review
I know some people (namely Bietz) have been disappointed in the lack of any real negative reviews from us. Well, here comes one from me at least. I did not like this place at all. When I first heard that Grumpy's opened a place in Roseville , it just pissed me off. I hated how a fairly cool place in both downtown and Northeast Minneapolis was now occupying an enormous building in the suburbs that had formerly housed a Majors - it just didn't feel right to me. Then, I went to their website and saw that they claim that Grumpy's is the "only real neighborhood joint in the area!" This angered me irrationally. This is a HUGE, very impersonal bar. Not a neighborhood joint.
Anyway, this place is very close to our friends Mindy and Josh's house, so it made sense for Josh to have his birthday gathering there to watch the NCAA games before heading over to their place later at night. I went with low expectations, but I did expect the food to at least be okay. I am not really a picky eater, and I usually enjoy bar food a lot. Grumpy's menu is ridiculously large - check it out online. I am always wary of places with this big of menus - it seems to me that if you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one because nothing is that great.
To start, I ordered the "Gazillion Cheese Dip" - initially I wanted nachos, but Mindy told me that she'd had them before and they weren't that good. I think they might have one too many cheeses in this dip, because they didn't mix that well together. I knew it wasn't a nacho cheese dip, but the dip curdled very quickly - it was okay right away when it came out but after a few minutes it got a little gross. I did really like the parmesan crisps that it came with - they were very good. It also came with chips, which was nice. I like to have options with my dips.
For my meal, I got the Clubhouse, which was not good at all. The bread was WAY too greasy - I could barely hold onto the sandwich. The meats were all slimy and falling off out of the sandwich. I didn't like it at all.
What I did enjoy about Grumpy's was the tater tots. That's all. I would not choose to go back here - if I am for some reason outnumbered or there is another birthday event going on, I'd get some kind of burger with the tater tots because those both seemed to be well received by many.
Deets
Grumpy's Roseville
2801 Snelling Ave North
Roseville, MN
Not recommended - the food and atmosphere are severely lacking. Going for a beer to watch a game would be fine... but really, there are many other places you can do that where you CAN get decent food and a fun atmosphere so why bother.
