One thing I have been bemoaning after leaving Chicago is Columbus’ lack of BYOB restaurants. There is a lot to be said for our food scene and our bar scene, but I also love being able to bring my own beverage of choice in to a restaurant, and end up avoiding a mark up for drinks. Or, enjoy a glass of wine in a restaurant that does not have their own liquor license. Well, I think I have found the next best thing… BYOF. Yes, bring your own food… to your favorite taproom and curate your own dinner!
Growl has become my favorite growler shop in town, for several reasons. They offer a great deal of variety, lean heavily on Ohio beers while featuring national and international gems, it’s a comfortable spot to hang out in, and you can [finally] drink there! The liquor license was a long time coming, but it’s now official. The space has a log cabin feel, great music playing, and a couple tables where you can relax and enjoy an excellent selection of beer or wine.
If you’re a beer drinker, your best bet at Growl is to start off with a flight. Flights are available in 4 or 6 beers, and prices vary by the beverage. You can make your own Christmas beer tasting, IPA tasting, or do what I did and just get a variety of things you want to try. Winners on my paddle included Catawba Island “Cookie Cutter” Christmas Ale, and the surprisingly crisp, right up the street local Luna Kombucha Apple Spice Tea Beer. Growl also offers iced coffee and non-alcoholic soda on draft so I also tried Rambling House Cranberry Spice soda. This was a not-so-good choice of flights, we both agreed that it kinda had a weird Pepto-bismol aftertaste. At their bar, Rambling House uses their sodas to craft specialty cocktails so I’d be interested to see what they do with it, but on it’s own, after heavily spiced beers, it does not taste right!
A newcomer to the neighborhood, and our dinner of choice at our most recent trip to Growl, is Acre. This former Graffiti Burger space at 2700 N. High St. opened at the end of November and promises to be an excellent addition to the area. We stopped in for a to-go order at 4:30 on a Friday and the seating area was already pretty busy. Acre’s mission is to be a Farm-to-Table fast food restaurant featuring organic, free range ingredients, buying local whenever possible. On first impression, they’re doing a great job!
Acre offers bowls, wraps, salads and tacos, as well as house made shrub sodas and spritzers. Shrubs are a new thing to me, first encountered at Denmark in some of their incredible cocktails. Acre will be making seasonal shrubs for their sodas. I got a ginger spritzer and it was great! Ginger syrup, seltzer and lime. Spicy, sweet and just a little bite. As far as food goes, we ordered a few things across the menu to get a taste of what Acre has to offer. The highlight for me was definitely the Caesar taco (added chicken). This is not your traditional taco filling, but the kale and feta was lightly dressed with caesar dressing and there was just enough chicken. Because we were headed out for a few drinks, we stuck with some easy to eat bar snacks and ordered the edamame hummus and the savory popcorn. The popcorn was excellent! Salted, cheesy and tasty. The hummus was not the best I’ve ever had, it was little on the bland side. The biggest flaw for the food was the packaging. We got the hummus with carrots and chips, and everything was crammed together in a too small container. It made it difficult to eat or dip anything in the hummus because you were already digging it out of the container in the first place. This is a pretty minor complaint, but considering the fact that Acre plans on opening a drive-thru soon (YAYYYY!), my number one recommendation is to think about alternative packaging for a lot of their (delicious) food.
Growl + Acre = a local match made in heaven. Take a stroll through Clintonville, grab a bite to eat and pop in to enjoy it with a great variety of craft beer. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
Eat and Run Columbus! 