Grumpy Bulldog Bar-Downtown Naperville

Last night as a fling, we decided to go to the hotbed of over priced chain restaurants in downtown Naperville and go to the Grumpy Bulldog. Located on Jackson, next to Tango replaced the Red Door.

The location is small and is basically a bar, but with the twist that they have a huge selection of beers on tap and bottled. We both like craft beers and were surprised to see the huge list for a little place. They have a decent kitchen and we enjoyed the evening. I hope as a cute independent place that they can survive.

OK, this is a great place to play pin the tail on the beer menu and see what you get. They have those almost beers like Millers and what ever, but you can see that this place is about craft beers. I saw a decent back bar as well. We had four different beers last night, Shiner Cheer, Left Hand Milk Stout, Magic Hat #9 and a Unibroue Brewery (this in a bottle). All were good, or good enough to talk about and enjoy.

We had the Fish Wrap and the Eggplant Parmesan sandwich. I love Eggplant Parmesan sandwiches and hold all competitors to a little joint in the Loop that closed, Rosie's. This was very good. The marinara sauce was very good. If it came from GFS, I'd be shocked. The fish wrap was well done and very tasty. The choice of sides made it easy to not just get fries.

The server we had was very knowledgeable about the beers and made it fun.

My complaints are few. The noise was a little loud even for a football game (nice TVs). I think the menu is an evolving thing based on changes from the web page to the real menu so adding a Veggie Burger would be nice as well as maybe another veggie option.

I judge a place, even a joint like this by will I come back, will I tell anyone else and finally who will I bring back. We will be back, I plan on telling my neighbors because I think they might like a place like this and finally when our kids come into town around the holidays, we will all come in.

Not a dress up place, not fancy. My only thing I might say is I'm sorry it isn't located closer or at least someplace easier to get to. But frankly, it is places like this that make me believe that the wasteland of downtown Naperville can be recovered.

And I love the name. Check this one out.

Web page is thegrumpybulldog.com