Loaded fries—topped with Nueske's applewood smoked bacon, sour cream, green onion, and haus whiz—are made from Kennebec potatoes twice fried in sunflower oil
As Andrew Fair, the Director of Restaurant Operations for Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, discusses the new menu for the company’s second Grove location, co-founder David Wolfe passed by. He bowled a thick roll of tape down a nearby flight of stairs, chagrined that he was spotted before the tape whistled by. Although his business has grown significantly over the years, there’s something comforting in seeing a boss having that kind of fun in his own facility.
Cheesesteak with shaved beef, pickled peppers and onions, haus Dusseldorf mustard
For Fair, though, fun’s come in the form of said new menu. After years of sticking with a European-styled assortment of offerings (with frequent use of boards) the menu’s now aiming toward a wider and more-accessible range, Fair says.
Salad with little gem lettuce, shaved cauliflower, golden raisins, pistachios, charred scallions, buttermilk dressing
“There’s so much research that went into this,” he says. “It’s been drawn from a lot of experiences. I always went back to the idea of a bierhall experience. Even though the menu’s less and less German as we’ve been progressing, we’ve taken inspiration from a lot of places. Mostly, it came from things we’d done and compiled. Like, we’ve always done a fish sandwich, but we played around with it again. Burgers have been on the menu on Sundays for almost two years and had a pretty strong following. It was time to just put it on [the daily menu]. Our sausage program is strong, but our format of using boards prevented some people from ordering it."
Fair notes that the menu will always be influenced, first and foremost, by its role as a craft brewery, and he’s perfectly comfortable with the fact that the lion’s share of patrons at UCBC will be there for the beer. And yet…
Wolfe notes that UCBC had long wanted to tap some of the nearby businesses and services for an infusion of customers at both lunch and dinner. (Some might not be aware that the Manchester facility is open daily at 11 a.m., seven days a week, with night hours until 9 p.m. on Sunday, 1 a.m. on the weekends, and 11 p.m. for the balance of the week.)
Days shy of his fifth anniversary at UCBC, Fair says that “I’ve been working on this idea for a month,” though some of the newly enacted ideas date back well before then.
“I was happy with the initial menu and what we did here, but I was a bit unsatisfied for a little while. It was really time to freshen things up. It was always in the back of my mind, knowing that it’s always been about beer first. But my goal’s to complement that experience. Frequently, people have come in and asked for something that wasn’t so heavily influenced in European cuisine; they wanted something more comfortable and familiar. We’ll be a lot more approachable now, with more salads, sandwiches, and soups on the menu. But we want to stay true to what we’ve become.”
So, in essence, you can get a grain bowl or veggie sandwich, or you can opt for the classics, like currywurst and schnitzel. If you’re lucky, you’ll even get to see a brewery chief bowling with tape, proving that UCBC might be getting bigger, but the corporate vibe’s still delightfully absent.
