Fun time... too short

So I get a call out of the blue from Keith. He tells me that he is organizing a little bit of a guys night out. Cool. Besides MR halloween and christmas we almost never get together at all during the year, which is a shame since we all have so much fun when we are together. But usually life gets in the way and between kids and other stuff our availability it a little tighter than before. Before we got married, Jen used to be a fixture at Keith's house and would spend alot of time there. Now she might get a few minutes to talk to Lori on the phone every couple of weeks. Anyway, back to the gathering. Keith recommended trying the new granite city food and brew restaurant. It just opened up near the mall and looked interesting. I have been to their website and it looked like it had a good menu and atmosphere. We figured we could take the evening to celebrate Jeff's upcoming father-hood, but leave it to Paula to mess up the evening by having the baby on Monday night. Just kidding, all of God's blessings to little Joshua and his parents. Actually Jen was trying to arrange a dinner with Lori and Paula before the birth date, but again little Joshua came early. So after work I stopped off at the rehab hospital to visit mom for a little bit. She is doing really well and should be home tomorrow if she has any say in it. I get to the restaurant and head for the bar. There is a ton of waiters and staff standing at the front door to welcome you. This is pretty typical for a new restaurant. Wait for 6 months and you might see one or two people at the front door. Anyway. The restaurant itself is pretty nice. It's not very big, but well decorated and has a wide open layout which is comfortable. I walk through the bar and no Keith, I walk through the restaurant and no Keith, I was just about to call him and I see him and the guys in a booth hidden in the corner (obviously they know where to put the riff raff :)). The service from Scott our waiter was fantastic. He checked on us continually and always made sure we had everything we needed. He annoyed me a little when he kept referring to everyone at the table as "my man", but it wasn't a big deal. Looking at the menu, there was a nice selection of food where everything looked good. I was kinda looking for the prices, but there wasn't any on the menu... strange. But there was numbers after the descriptions. I was thinking that they might be the prices, but the appetizers were higher numbers than the sandwiches. I found out later that those numbers were the prices, they just have BIG appetizers. I now it's a kitchy thing to do, but would it kill you to just print a couple of zeros. The only beer to drink there was their 5 microbrews which were pretty tasty even with my stuffy head and off taster. The special for the night was a $5 "growler" on the website. I had to ask when the heck is a "growler". Basicly it's a big bottle (2 litres) that you can fill up and take home. You can't drink it there, but you can take this huge bottle and take it out the door. It reminded me of a story my grandma used to tell how her dad used to give her a nickle and a bucket and send her down to the corner store to fill it up with beer. The "growler" is actually a pretty good deal if you go by the restaurant often, especially with the beer being $4.25 a glass. They also had a "Mug" club that was a pretty good deal too (again if you were there frequently). Anyway back to the food. I changed my order at the last second from a wrap to a basic cheeseburger, which was a mistake. The cheeseburger was overcooked (burnt) and dry. Everyone elses food looked very good and they all seemed to like their meals. But my bad burger didn't put my off trying this restuarant again in the future. I am not sure if I can attribute my bad burger to the Cramer restaurant curse, but nothing else went wrong, so probably not. We were having a good time ribbing each other and telling stories. Most of the group (Marcus,Keith,Mike,Tim,and Todd) have known each other for 25 + years at least so I got a little lost in some of their stories and references, but it will still fun to hear them. After we ate and paid the bills, I was settling in for more stories and ribbing, and everyone got up and started to leave. That kinda surprised me, but I am sure there was other stuff to do on a tuesday night. Overall a good time at a good place. A little pricey, but not too bad overall. I look forward to Jen and I having a "date night" there sometime soon to give it another try.

The next tentative plan is to get together at ThunderBowl the old Hilcrest Bowl on the South side of town. At least half of the group worked there in high school and thought it would be nostalgic.