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the groveland tap

[address]

1834 St Clair Ave St. Paul

[phone]

(651) 699-5058

[date of visit]

2/8/2003

[price]

[summary]

Cure for wintertime chills: head to the Tap on a frigid night and wrap your paws around a hot Lucy. Then throw down on some tabletop Ms. Pacman.

[the joint]

Groveland Tap is one of those neat combination joints where all kinds of people from the neighborhood come to hang out. A quick survey of the place showed one corner populated by the ubiquitous group of college kids, a game room jammed with somewhere around 140 small children - presumably the offspring of former college kids - and, at the bar, a groups of old dudes, stoic to the point of being cliche.

Seating in the front of the place is a few tables and booths, but in the back past the bar is another room full of high tables and stools. We managed to push together about 10 tables and collect enough stools for the 9 of us to all sit together. It was a little bright where we were sitting - which was weird for a bar - but it worked out ok because it afforded us the chance to properly inspect and evaluate the Lucys from all angles.

[the food]

The food at Groveland Tap is adventurous enough to be labeled 'fun'. Sure, it's standard bar food, but there are enough eyebrow raisers to differentiate them from, say, the Refuge.

We started with a couple of pitchers and bunch of appetizers. Things got off to a good start when the beers arrived complete with a collection of frosty pint glasses. Being winter, I suppose they could have just left them out back, but I think in this case they were truly right from the freezer.

For food, we went with a big basket of onion rings, an order of artichoke dip and a basket of deep fried pickles. The apps were solidly average, but far from spectacular. The onion rings were of the frozen sort and the bread that came with the choke dip was a fluffy Wonder Bread style sub roll. (WTF?) I'd never had deep fried pickles before and they were better than I'd expected them to be. That said, I suspect that if you smothered a deep fried shoe with ranch dressing that I'd probably like it, too.

For the Main Event, most of us ordered up Lucy baskets. The basket at Groveland Tap gets you fresh cut fries and a cup of slaw with your Juicy. Onions - fried or raw - and California style are additional available options. All in all, not a bad deal at \$6.50.

Everyone but KC went with the traditional American cheese filling. He elected to go with something called the Cajun Lucy, which is a version stuffed with jalapenos and pepper jack cheese. (Ouch.) Other orders at the table included a bacon cheeseburger and a garden burger. Unfortunately, non-Lucy results are outside the scope of this document.

The food itself was good and bad. On the good side, the burgers were consistently hot, fresh and loaded with cheese. The fresh cut fries weren't overly greasy and were more than plentiful in the basket. And last but not least, the coleslaw was wonderfully garlicky, a true promotion from its traditional role as garnish.

On the bummer side, the burgers themselves were [bizarrely] a little on the small side. Beyond that, the bun was barely toasted and the whole thing was accompanied by only a few meager pickle chips. There were some scattered reports of inadequate cheese, but due to a fresh pitcher of beer arriving at the table, they went ignored and unverified.

[service]

Service was decent enough. The initial beer order took a while to come out, like maybe 15 minutes even, but things improved after that. All food was delivered by runners, which, as usual, is nice.

Here's a picture of our waitress. This is in the beginning of our dinner, so she's not tired of us yet.

[conclusion]

All in all, if you're looking for a solid Juicy with quality sides, Groveland Tap is up to the task. Bring the whole family and have fun.