Crushed By Giants Brewing Company
600 N. Michigan Avenue, 2nd FloorVacation time!
Last year really threw us off. We have been doing zoo trips since the kids were born as our vacations. We’re at a point now that we have been to pretty much every zoo in a five hour radius of Kalamazoo (Saginaw being the one exception for some reason). We were beginning to plan a simple vacation last year doubling back to the Chicago zoos before Coronavirus put an end to that plan.
We started feeling a little better about traveling this year but still had some hesitation. Another thing we started in recent years was my parents taking the kids for a week in the summer. We have to plan pretty far in advance due to childcare commitments needing to be made before school is out.
We picked the week after July 4th. J and I both took an extra day off so we could drive the kids to my parents in Illinois. The plan was for them to keep the kids Monday through Saturday then we’d pick them up and spend a long weekend “vacation” in Chicago.
We found a really great Priceline Express Deal that got us in to the Marriott on the Mag Mile. We wanted the downtown experience and really got the room for a suburban price.
J and I wanted a night to ourselves so we booked the room Friday through Monday. We took off from Kalamazoo after work and headed to Chicago for a night without the kids.
Driving in Chicago has never bothered me. It can be a pain if you end up in the wrong lane but we made it the corner of Rush and Grand fairly easily. I missed the valet lane at the hotel but I knew self park was a block past the hotel. As I attempted to make it to the ramp, I realized the street became one way and I was in the wrong lane. I figured, I’ll just go around the block….which is not something you can easily do in Chicago. 20 minutes later, I looped back around and got in the right lane to get us where we needed to be.
Check-in took a while. There was a rush around 8:00 when we got there. There was a big AAU basketball tournament happening at McCormick Place that weekend and it seemed like every team was just arriving in town.
We finally got to our room about 8:30, got dressed and headed out for dinner.
There were a couple of places close to the hotel we wanted to check out but we figured we had a long weekend and we’d get to them all (spoiler alert, we didn’t…reservations are the norm and you can’t get them 20 minutes before you want to eat) so I picked the one that I figured would be the quickest and easiest on a Friday night.
Crushed By Giants Brewing Company has an address of Michigan Avenue but the entrance is actually on the corner of North Rush Street and East Ohio Street just off Chicago’s Magnificent Mile in Chicago’s Near North Side. The brewery is on the second floor of a building that also hosts an AMC Dine In Theater. If you’re trying to find it from Michigan Avenue, the UnderArmor store is what you’ll see at this address.
The restaurant is on the second floor so when you enter off Rush Street, there’s an escalator that takes you to the entrance of the brewery.
We walked in to the bar at about 8:40. There were open tables and a sign that said to seat yourself. Menus were on the table already in the form of a QR code.
We grabbed a table in the bar area. The space is not really huge but there are more tables than I was expecting. There is a nice horseshoe bar in the middle of the room right inside the door. The barstools were pretty full with people just enjoying some tasty beers. There are also pub tables in this area but we picked a two top along a padded shared bench.
In addition to the bar, there is a dining room if you keep going a little further in. This is the little more family friendly part of the restaurant. There were larger groups and families enjoying dinner after what I can only assume is a long day of shopping.
As we sat down, a server came over to tell us that if we wanted food, we’d need to decide quick. The kitchen closed at 9:00. We did want food so we whipped out our phones to scan the QR code. We needed to get that order in quickly.
We both ordered beers to start. They don’t have a huge beer list but there is more than enough for me. I started with Last Cup of Sorrow. This is listed as a Double IPA made with Vic Secret, Sabro and Motueka hops. The beer is a really easy drinking DIPA. I tried to milk it waiting for our food but it was too hard.
My second beer was Bad Day Remedy Imperial West Coast IPA. The beer came in a cool 13 oz IPA glass. The beer had that really good bitter but slightly juicy flavor. I downed this thing in no time. The beer was good and it felt good to sit in a pub to drink a fresh draft.
J typically goes for sours but Crushed by Giants didn’t have any sours on their list. She picked the Outta Juice Lemon Shandy. As far as shandy’s go, this was pretty tasty. It has a pretty strong lemon flavor and J seemed to enjoy it.
The menu at Crushed by Giants, like the beer menu, isn’t huge but there’s a lot of good choices.
I picked The Burger. This aptly named sandwich is two steak patties, American cheese, caramelized onions, special sauce, mustard, lettuce, and tomato all served on a brioche bun. For two extra dollars, I added bacon and left off the onions. This burger was really good. The meat alone was stand out delicious. It was juicy and packed a ton of flavor. The American cheese was melted in to the bacon and the special sauce, while I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was, was served on the side. I was able add just a little bit to get that added a hint of flavor without dripping out the sides and all over my shirt. The sandwich came with steak fries served with ketchup on the side.
J started her meal with the Side Salad. This bowl, which is a little bigger than I was expecting for a side salad, is filled with a harvest lettuce mix, corn, tomato, cucumber, croutons, Parmesan cheese and dressed with Green Goddess Dressing.
J likes to do appetizers as entrees paired with a salad and that’s exactly what she did here. She picked the Cauliflower and Curds. This was a good choice. The bowl is Buffalo fried cauliflower AND fried cheese curds served with bleu cheese dressing. J doesn’t always like spicy but this wasn’t too spicy. The veggies and cheese are fried in a batter then covered in the buffalo sauce. I don’t like cauliflower but I do like fried cheese and stole a couple delicious nuggets from her.
Our bill, before tip, was just under $70.
Crushed by Giants is our kind of place. I know finding a brewery in downtown Chicago doesn’t sound super romantic but this is who we are. We’re not the kind of people who are going to a fancy French restaurant. Good beer. Good food. Good atmosphere. That’s who we are and that’s exactly what Crushed by Giants is.
SW Michigan Dining 