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Granite Brewery & Restaurant
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Garage
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Music:
- Background
- Best Nights:
- Fri, Thu, Sat
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Smoking:
- Outdoor Area/ Patio Only
- Coat Check:
- No
- Noise Level:
- Average
- Good For Dancing:
- No
- Ambience:
- Casual
- Has TV:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
22 reviews for Granite Brewery & Restaurant
Review Highlights
22 reviews in English
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Review from Jean A.
Toronto, ON
1/31/2012
My husband and I went there to check out their Winterlicious menu. I had read a bunch of reviews and more or less knew what to expect. Overall, I side with the more positive reviews on this place.
Beer:
My husband was excited to find a local brew pub (we're new to the area). He tried two beers--their stout and the Peculiar. He's had better stouts, but the Peculiar he really liked. I tried the root beer and it was definitely tasty.
Food:
With the Winterlicious menu, the best part was definitely the mains. Our starters were pretty tiny and nothing terribly special. The regular-menu starters definitely looked better. This was in part due to my terrible, brain-dead decision to order a tomato-bocconcinni salad in January... But then again, maybe they shouldn't have even put it on the menu!
Our mains were good, though, and even a step up from the expected pub fare. My husband had a butter chicken, which was probably one of the better butter chickens we've had. I had a braised lamb shank--very tasty, tender and excellent value for the Winterlicious menu. There were options on the regular menu that looked tasty, too.
Dessert was... fine. Not bad, not spectacular.
Service:
We found the service to be excellent. We ate up by the bar area. The staff there were super friendly and attentive, quickly (but not obnoxiously) clearing our plates after each course and checking on our drink levels. There was a private party in the library area, but this didn't affect the attention given to us at all.
Decor:
Again I say, it's a pub! It's nothing spectacular, but it was cozy enough to have a casual dinner. The library room also looked nice. We didn't see the main dining room.
Overall:
We'd definitely go back. It was a chill place to hang out with friendly service, good beer and decent enough food! If you're looking for a fancier, foodier meal, I'd go elsewhere, but for a casual meal with some good beer and relaxed atmosphere, this is not a bad choice! -
Review from Magdalena R.
Toronto, ON
12/18/2011
You may be thrown by the old gungy looking decore when you first enter. I was, but my friend insisted that their food was good so I gave it a go. It turned out that the food was not bad indeed. I have been back a few times now and have developed a few favourites. The stuffed chicken is quite yummy, their burgers are pretty huge and tastey, and the beer is good. I have also tried their fries supreme, and that definitely got a two thumbs up.
The service is mostly nice and helpful. They have free wifi, which is convenient and there is plenty of room to sit.
Honestly, if they upgraded the decore just a little bit, and maybe dusted, I would give them 4 stars. -
Review from Sol O.
Toronto, ON
9/28/2011
A decent place. Came here to grab some food, and I ended up inhaling some quesadillas, burger, and crab cakes.
The food was good. The service spotty. Basically just another pub.
Did not try the beer so I cannot comment on that selection. -
Review from Elaine K.
9/24/2011 4 photos
Not a shabby place to hang out.
We came here for some wings and beer.
Beer? Great. The pint of roundwood was quite nice.
Wings, not too bad. The suicide wings were a little overcooked but actually quite spicy. I was pretty happy about that.
The service was friendly and the place was pretty busy on a Friday night. I won't be rushing back any time soon, but if I'm in the area and thirsty for a pint, this is a decent place to go to.
Apparently there's customer parking underground, but I found that sign a little too late.Listed in: Wing a Ding Ding!
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Review from Lauren M.
8/22/2011 1 Check-in Here
This place is grotty and depressing. What is needs is a good dusting and some refurbishing. It reminds me of an East London pub where the old men hang about smoking cigarettes, betting on horses and asking me to "shake me arse...(luv)".
I'm getting itchy just writing this review.
They did have a large uninventive pub food menu. I didn't eat anything but everyone else's food looked pretty mediocre, and it came out a bit too fast, which is never a good sign. Cold fries.
The serverwasn't particularly friendly but he got the job done. -
Review from Li K.
North York, ON
12/30/2011
This place is just what I need to get away from the losers who rate it 2 stars or less... The beer store is perfect. The front bar is my second home: quiet, warmly lit (but subdued) and plenty of great English style ales. The library area is a nice place to sit for lunch and the large back area is perfect for brunch or supper. I also love their huge patio in the warmer months. In short, this is a place for real beer and pub lovers. Looking for Boston Pizza? There's an app for that.
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Review from Mike M.
Toronto, ON
11/22/2011 1 Check-in Here
This is a great place. Fantastic original beers are brewed on site. The food is good and so is the atmosphere. I come here often.
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Review from Madelaine D.
Toronto, ON
4/19/2011
The Granite Brewery surprised me. I have walked by this place a hundred times before and my impression from the outside has always been that it's just an old dive desperately in need of a makeover that never gets much business. The reality is slightly different.
First of all this place is a microbrewery serving 8 to 10 of their own ales, brewed in house. The beers were quite good and a nice change from the typical brews they seem to serve in every pub in this city. They also sell these by the case or keg to take away.
The décor, as assumed, is dated. It kind of feels like you're sitting in your grandparents livingroom if they still had the same décor they had when they were first married. Despite appearances this place is BIG. They have two small front rooms and a big dining room in the back with a fireplace.
The clientele was mostly old. Like retired white hair old for the most part.
The menu is extensive, everything from brunch, to dinner to late night pub food. The nachos were absolutely loaded with toppings to the point that I don't think we found a single plain chip in the mix. Perfect. I've heard the rest of the menu is pretty tasty too.
Oh and I almost forgot about the service. It's extremely friendly and accommodating and they have their own free parking lot below the brewery.
I went here with low expectations and came out fairly impressed. I'll be back in the summer to chill on their patio.
***Tip: Their beer store is open until 11pm Monday to Saturday. This information is key if you run out of beer after the beer store is already closed*** -
Review from Mariko M.
6/10/2011
Came here for a retirement party the other night.
As noted by Mitch S. the atmosphere was 'meh.'
We were fed the hors d'oeuvres of the Granite Brewery. Once again, another 'meh.' Cut up vegetables, samosas from Costco and thin pieces of cheddar cheese ...
I don't drink alcohol anymore, but the watered down, overpriced fountain drink was okay I guess.
In Toronto, I've experienced better.
When I retire, my party won't be here. -
Review from Laura H.
12/17/2010
I, too, am surprised at the subpar reviews this place has gotten - especially considering how C'est What? seems to have performed better on Yelp. I went to both when I was in Toronto and found Granite Brewery far superior.
I am a beer snob of moderate proportions, but it's definitely overwhelmed by my inherent, unquenchable love for beer. That is, I prefer the good stuff and I go out of my way to find it, but if you handed me a PBR I'd probably be happy with it.
When I went with my friend, we started out by ordering the sampler platter of beers and I thought that most of them were quite good. One - I think it was the high-hops content variety - tasted a little bit like it was drawn from the dregs of the keg, but the other kinds were full-bodied and rich. I've had better beer before, certainly, but beer made by monks who do nothing other than live in Belgium, chant, and make brew is going to be better than beer made by an establishment that needs to make money by doing other things.
That said, I found the Old Peculiar here to be delicious. I considered taking a growler of it home, but didn't want to deal with customs. Maybe I just went here on an "on" day for this place, but the service was fast and friendly, and I thought the food was quite good. I ordered a grilled fish sandwich with guacamole which was fabulous, and my friend got the mac and cheese. She found her dish a little too spicy - it had jalepenos in it - but said the flavor was good.
So... I have to say I don't know why this place hasn't performed better in ratings, but I guess I happened to hit it on a good day. Or maybe I just drank enough beer that the entire world was glorious, regardless. Minus one star for the somewhat odd location and the fact that the one beer tasted like it had been dredged from the bottom of the barrel. Four overall. -
Review from Justin E.
Toronto, ON
6/30/2009
I agree with my esteemed reviewing colleague Vanessa G. This place is grim, dark and strangely desperate. I can recommend it only to those returning from a long sea voyage with nothing to their name except gift certificates to this place. (Sometimes pirates pay out in gift certificates, I hear.)
Anyway, the decor is old and faded and vinyl; ambiance is non-existent. The food, for its part, is somewhere between semi-edible and uninteresting and while the service is with a smile, it's nothing to write home about.
It dawned on me as I ate there that everyone in the restaurant, staff and patrons alike, looked a bit glum - as if we were in a Siberian Gulag kitchen in the winter of 1921, doomed to another six months without sunlight, wrapped in used medical bandages (used by others) for warmth.
Yes that's it! Imagine someone transplanted a prison from last-century Siberia, added a bit of Pseudo-Country Flavour and plunked it all down in Mid-Town Toronto. Not good. I half expected the library ghost from Ghostbusters to appear in one of the dark recesses of this place, paging through War and Peace - a novel as tedious as the restaurant itself. Dostoyevsky himself would give the place a look and decide it was TOO depressing.
I suppose I shouldn't expect much seeing as this place's specialty is its beer, not its food. But come on - you've got restaurant in the name...let's renovate once every 37 years and maybe shake up the kitchen a bit, shall we? That's a nice restaurant. Don't cry! There there. One day you'll fix yourself up! (Or close down) -
Review from Mitch S.
Toronto, ON
12/24/2009
So let me explain why I gave the Granite Brewery 3 stars. Personally I think the pub lacks atmosphere and it feels more like a mediocre restaurant...Not a good quality for a pub...So that would earn it one or two stars maximum.
Although, as the name 'Brewery' would suggest, the beer here is quite good. I like the variety, the fact they brew it themselves, and that you can purchase it to bring home. I LOVE that the beer is actually quite good, probably the best draught you can get in the Yonge and Eglinton area. So that's a solid 4 stars.
Put it together and you get 3 stars! Go out and give it a try, expect awesome beer in a meh atmosphere. -
Review from Diane R.
Toronto, ON
1/5/2011
This is one of my standard places to go to when I feel like relaxing with a pint of GOOD beer. I see how this place might not be everybody's cup of tea (or should I say pint of ale?) -- especially if you don't care about beer that much) -- but if you do like beer, I urge you to give it a try. I've been coming to this place for over 7 years now, and beer is certainly the main reason I come here.
LOCATION
I find the area around the pub somewhat depressing. It's right on the corner of two major roads, there are old unsightly apartment buildlings all over the area. I live near Eglinton a bit west of Yonge, and I think I'd go here more often if the walk to this place was more enjoyable. As it is, Granite and Twisted Kilt (another place with notable taps in the area) are about equidistant from me, and I choose to go to TK more often partly because it's a nicer walk and it's located on a fairly upbeat stretch of Yonge. But then, I know I am unusually sensitive to this sort of thing (I have no idea how people voluntarily choose to live in suburbia for example and go to huge ugly malls for entertainment, ugh!)
DECOR & ATMOSPHERE
It's not a very fancy place. I best like the little section near the entrance, the one with all the books. The back room feels too large, too isolated, gloomy and devoid of personality (they might have a fireplace back there, but that does not salvage it). The front patio is tiny and lacks any kind of appeal - you will have to stare at the worst of midtown's "architecture" and scream to be heard over the Mount Pleasant traffic. The back patio is much cozier - and sheltered from the rain too (even if it is a vinyl sheet they stretch over it).
They have a new big TV near the front and a few smaller ones, but the sound is never on - that's the pub's policy, apparently. There are the books I mentioned and some trivia cards on some of the tables. There might be board games - but I never asked.
SERVICE
A couple of times over the years I've encountered rude service here, but that was over 3 years ago. Once it was a rude guy who seemed impatient with us the whole time, and at the end openly scoffed at his tip (and it was a generous tip, especially considering the service, but we dared to include some pennies among the coins, which he told were going straight into the garbage, 'cause he has no room in his pockets to carry such worthless stuff). Another time we showed up about an hour before closing time, and were greeted by the same guy who told us the pub was closing now, since it was a slow night. Those two experienced (spaced fairly closely together, as in within a couple of months of each other) almost put me off this place for good, but I haven't seen that guy there for a while, so he might not work there anymore.
Other than that, the service has been quite good. The waiters are all friendly and some are real sweethearts. Food and drink generally arrive pretty quickly.
BEER
Ah, this is where this place shines. They brew their own stuff, and it's darn good stuff!!! My personal favourites are Best Bitter, Best Bitter Special (dry-hoppe and cask-conditioned), and Peculiar. Gin Lane ("barley wine", 9%) is also an interesting alternative. When locally root beer is available, it's an interesting alcohol-free alternative. (I find that most places have extremely underwhelming non-alcoholic drink selection, so I get all excited when I come upon a place that offers some interesting beverages in addition to the usual boring overpriced line-up of ultra-sugary pops and not-very-good-juices).
There is also a beer store, where Granite beers can be bought to go in growlers.
FOOD
The food is not this place's forte. Occasionally they manage a surprisingly decent special, but for the most part the food is not well executed. The fries might be fresh and real, but the side veggies are definitely out of some sort of frozen package. Salad dressings taste like overprocessed storebought crap. Still, food is edible enough, though, that I come here anyway: I order food just to fill the tummy and then concentrate on enjoying the taste of the beer.
BONUS
Free wi-fi! This could be a not-bad place to get work done over a couple of pints, if beer gets your creative juices flowing better than coffee does. -
Review from Steve L.
Toronto, ON
9/30/2011
We went for an event in the back room and we were told there would be good beer and good food as well. it was way under staffed for 150 people. Our server we had said he had no idea how long it would take to get anything other than a beer. there was no manager overseeing the operation or i would have spoken to him.
The beer was very good and from the rudeness of our server it was clear that they only wanted to serve their beer. I saw only a few meals being served during the 2.5 hrs we were there. No reciepts were given or offered for the beer at my table of 8. Revenue Canada should check them out. Maybe our server had a purpose for not doing any meals. So go for the beer and forget the food.
DO NOT HOLD AN EVENT AT THIS JOINT.....I FOUND OUT THAT ANOTHER EVENT LIKE THIS WAS THE SAME. NO FOOD SERVICE to speak of !
I see from all the other reviews that there was good sevice for some reviewers but lots of others experienced what we had last night.
This is the fault of management and /or ownership. There is no reason to have nasty staff like this. maybe it's a union place. The Beer Cafe on King street is fantastic on Beer and Food and Service. It is very busy all the time. They are a great example of how to run a BEER JOINT
Steve, Toronto -
Review from Brad C.
9/2/2008 8 photos
I went in here Sunday morning... I guess they have a Sunday breakfast buffet that goes on every week. I took a peak at it and it looked decent, but I was there to try the beer. Beer and eggs just didn't sound too good to me.
My fiancée and I ordered the beer flight of all 8 beers and the root beer along with an appetizer sampler. Over all none of the beers were that impressive. The stout was the only one I remember being pretty good, but the best one was their root beer. The price for the beer sampler was really good I think it was only $10. But my biggest problem with Granite was the service was terrible. I know it was Sunday morning / afternoon but there was only like six tables and two waitresses.
If you're a beer nut and have to try all the brewery's in Toronto then give Granite a try. Or if you're working at DraftFCB and looking for a lunch spot then Granite could work for you. But if you ask me just go to Mill Street and skip Granite. Granite Brewery isn't that great and pretty far from the downtown. -
Review from Vanessa G.
Toronto, ON
10/21/2008 1 photo
I went here on Thanksgiving Monday and it was the most depressing thing ever. The restaurant was filled with old people (and by filled I mean 1/20 full). There's no fancy decor or sense of pride about the ambiance here. And the food was god awful.
We ordered the thanksgiving meal, turkey, potatoes, stuffing, veggies, cranberry. The veggies were obviously of the frozen variety, the mashed potatoes were chunky (which I guess is nice, because it means they weren't instant) and the turkey tasted processed beyond belief. The beer sampler was pretty good, but like Brad said, none of them stood out (although the root beer was tasty). The service was pretty terrible. The waitress seemed frazzled and disinterested in serving us, and there was a ridiculous procession involving there being no pumpkin pie. Then there was pumpkin pie, then there was no pumpkin pie. Eventually we got our pumpkin pie but I was so sick from the crappy food I didn't care.
They might have better food on non-special occasions but I wouldn't recommend this place for a Thanksgiving meal - or for a pleasant experience. -
Review from Brenda S.
12/14/2009
I am really surprised at the bad reviews -- this is one of my favourite spots.
The menu is what I'd call extended pub food. There are the requisite burgers, sandwiches, wings, etc. with some more elaborate pastas, stir fries, pub curries, and steaks. There's nothing really unique or fancy, but it's all done really well and it's all fresh. The fries are real fresh-cut potatoes with the peels on, and they are to die for. (The only thing on the menu that isn't really edible is the pizza -- overcooked and too salty. Then again, I rarely expect that a restaurant that isn't a pizzeria will have good pizza.)
A couple of people mentioned having brunch there and the service was bad. I've never been in for brunch, but I know that the dinnertime-and-later staff are great guys who are friendly and always remember what we order. I love the atmosphere, it's quiet and relaxing and warm, and not pretentious or fake.
The beers are all phenomenal, especially the Old Peculiar and the Gin Lane barley wine. They've got nine different varieties altogether, with a couple that are seasonal. At under $6 a pint before tax and tip, it's affordable as brew pubs go.
Yes, there may be an older demographic there sometimes. It is not hip, swinging, or happening. It's Mount Pleasant, what do you expect? Get over it, and have some really good beer and food. -
Review from Pete C.
Oakville, ON
12/29/2010
I've been here several times with my son who lives in the area. The servers have always been friendly and the service has been prompt.
I really like their BBQ sauce and have found their sandwiches and wraps are tasty and good value.
In nice weather there is a quiet shady patio out back that a lot of people don't seem to know about.
i also appreciated the free (validated) parking garage. -
Review from Todd V.
Toronto, ON
10/10/2008
I have no excuse for this place. I don't get to it nearly enough and that is yet again a failing on my part. I apologize. Every time I have been up there I have always been treated to really good food, really tasty made-right-there beers, and staff that know what they're talking about.
The first time in here was completely on a whim, but the return trips have been more exacting. The menu, as solid as any that you'd expect in a pub, is basic and tasty, and if nothing else, complements the beers brewed their quite easily.
Now the beers, well, here we go. There's several different varieties on tap as well as some seasonal faves (e.g., summer ale, Oktoberfest). My biggest problem is in my desire to reacquaint myself with the taps, I find myself running them, going from one to the next trying to determine what the best of the bunch are. Two things happen. First, my taste buds become so overwhelmed that I eventually cannot discern the last beer from the one before it. Second, well, what do you think happens after a bunch of beer. Do yourself a favour. It's a five minute walk from the subway station. Seize that opportunity.
I guess I could try to go through the taps in two or three successive trips, but my nose keeps bleeding when I go north of Bloor. This place however is worth the jamming of tissue up the nostrils. -
Review from Brad M.
North York, ON
12/30/2009
Still trying to find a damn good brewhouse in TO.
I'd brew my own if I could find a half decent home brew market.
Look... this place sucks if you are looking for good beer. Their IPA was closer to a coors then a Dog Fish Head (if you get that, you know what I mean).
Skip it. Go to Mill St. -
Review from Josh A.
Toronto, ON
7/2/2010
I just held a party for 27 people (including kids) at this place. Booked a reservation a week ahead on the patio and everything worked out perfectly. Nice outside patio in back perfect for summer and winter eating. Also have free parking available underneath the Brewery. The food was fantastic. I had the Jerk chicken pasta. Nice!. Service was great. Everyone at the party seemed to have a great time. Recommended.
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Review from Yo U.
9/26/2009
I thought that the bartender here was a great fella, and I had a great chat with one of the regulars. This place is alright.
