New brewery brings 'craft' to Naperville
"Craft" is the word at a new restaurant opening Wednesday in Naperville.
Crafting will be apparent in the beers, appetizers, entrees, even cocktails and desserts and all aspects of the experience at Granite City Food & Brewery, the restaurant's leaders say.
"The idea behind it was keeping people here for the craft beer," said RJ Nab, director of field operations for the Minnesota-based restaurant, which is opening its 31st location. "We call it craft food, craft service and then craft beer."
The brewery and restaurant is preparing to open at 1828 Abriter Court, behind the Maggiano's near Indepencence Avenue and Freedom Drive on Naperville's north side. It's the first aspect of the Freedom Plaza development to be finished as construction continues to the west on the area's main element, a 168-room Embassy Suites hotel with a banquet space to seat 1,000 people.
Granite City CEO Rob Doran, a St. Charles resident, stopped in Friday as employees were taking turns waiting on each other and enjoying food and drinks during a mock service exercise. He said the 11,000-square-foot Naperville restaurant is a new prototype that employs a "polished casual" look and feel to the bar, patio and dining areas.
"We've tried to step up the design so that it's a little more contemporary," said Doran, a former McDonald's executive.
Granite City chefs say they're stepping up the food, too, offering new menu items in Naperville including ponzu-glazed salmon, bone-in rib-eye, Granite City mac and cheese, ahi tuna wontons, braised bison short ribs and jumbo sea scallops.
The brewery will sell five house-made beers year-round, using a process in which wort, a sweet liquid used to make beer, is brewed at one location in Iowa, then shipped to each restaurant to complete the fermentation process. Ten guest beers also will be on tap from Illinois craft breweries such as Goose Island, Two Brothers and Revolution. Granite City will sell its own seasonal beers, starting with an Oktoberfest variety.
"Hopefully we'll break into a little more high-gravity beers this year," Nab said.
The restaurant generally opens at 11 a.m. and closes at 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, 9 p.m. on Sunday and 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday.