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Review: Granite City Food & Brewery

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Disclosure: I attended a preview lunch event and a VIP dinner event for the launch of Granite City’s Schaumburg location as compensation for this post. Granite City has provided the gift card for this giveaway. The opinions expressed here are my own. Read full Disclosure Policy.

Review: Granite City, Schaumburg Illinois

“Granite City” is the nickname of St. Cloud, Minnesota, and it’s also the name of a new restaurant in Schaumburg, Illinois! Granite City Food & Brewery is a restaurant and microbrewery that features cooked-to-order American style food. They’ve got five locations in Illinois: Naperville, Orland Park, Rockford, East Peoria, and now Schaumburg, which just opened yesterday, 2/25/15! 

I visited Granite City in Schaumburg recently as part of a bloggers’ preview event to sample their lunch and dinner menu items. One of the things that impressed me most about Granite City is that all food is cooked on site. It’s a sad reality these days that many popular chain-type restaurants don’t actually cook most of their food — it arrives prepackaged and is heated to order. Granite City prides itself on cooking everything from scratch for its patrons. (In fact, the only item not cooked on site at each Granite City location is a fruit sorbet used in one of its desserts… more on that in a bit!)

 

Photo provided by Granite City

The restaurant has an upscale yet casual feel to it, with a warm and inviting decor. Think fireplaces, lots of wood and exposed stone — a great place to spend a cold Chicagoland winter afternoon or evening, certainly! An outdoor patio has a fire pit and lots of seating, which looks like it will be a comfortable place to enjoy during warmer months. The Schaumburg Granite City location is located at the corner of Woodfield Rd. and Plaza Drive just west of Woodfield Mall.

Chef Tomasz brought a variety of appetizers, salads, and entree items out for us to try (he’s got a platter of Asian glazed shrimp here, which were enormous and quite tasty.) Here are some of my favorite items I tried at the Schaumburg Granite City location:

These seared Ahi tuna wontons were delicious. The tuna sat on a bed of wasabi guacamole on a crispy wonton glazed with soy and honey.

This is a Maple Pepper Bacon and Tomato flatbread pizza. Outstanding! The bacon (you guys know how much I love bacon!) on this pizza is thick and smoky sweet with a little kick of pepper. The crust is crispy with a touch of garlic. I had to share this with other bloggers, but I secretly wanted to slide this tray over to my side of the table… and keep it there.

Here’s Granite City’s 21-ounce bone-in ribeye, served with Parmesan potatoes and broccolini. The steak fans in our group really loved this!

I had these braised Bison short ribs, which were very tasty! It’s not easy to see in this photo, but the ribs sat on a bed of horseradish mashed potatoes, which were really different with just the right amount of kick to them (and I’m not a huge spicy food fan.) Granite City offers a gluten-free menu too, and it features GF-versions of many of their signature dishes. Granite City has a variety of delicious desserts too:

This chocolate cake is served with a warm cup of whiskey butter to pour over the cake.

This deep dish chocolate chip cookie was a real crowd-pleaser! It’s got toffee and almonds inside, and it was served with a scoop of ice cream and warm caramel.

I think this dessert trio is the best value of the bunch though! This entire platter is only $5.95, and it comes with a fruit sorbet (the only item not made in-house), a brownie sundae and crème brûlée. Yum!

Beer fans will likely enjoy Granite City too — they brew all of their craft beers on site at a microbrewery within the restaurant. We took a little tour of the brewery and learned about the process. All of Granite City’s craft beers originate at their Minnesota facility, but the actual brew process takes place on site at each Granite City location. The beer’s wort is shipped in liquid form to each restaurant location in a process they call “Fermentus Interruptus.” Once the wort arrives, yeast is added and the fermentation process takes place on site, ensuring a fresh beer selection at each restaurant. Ready to check out Granite City for yourself?

Want to check out Granite City’s great food and brews? I’ve got a $25 Granite City gift card to give away to one lucky reader! To enter, simply post a reply in the comments. This Granite City gift card begins today, February 26, 2015, and runs for one week. The giveaway will end on March 4th, 2015 at 11:59pm CST, and on March 5th, one winner will be chosen via a random number generator!

UPDATE: Giveaway has ended! The winner is Amurphyyy!

More about Granite City Food & Brewery: Granite City Food & Brewery commenced operations in St. Cloud, Minn., in June 1999 and has grown to include 30 restaurants in 13 states. Granite City has won awards nationwide for Best Restaurant, Best Brunch, Best Patio, Best Beer, Best Martini, Best Burger, and more, including the prestigious Nation’s Restaurant News Hot Concept Winner. Granite City is passionate about creating fresh menu items from scratch and uses its patented brewing process to deliver the best brews. Granite City Food & Brewery is a polished casual American restaurant featuring fresh, high-quality menu items prepared from made-from-scratch recipes. Signature dishes include Grilled Chicken and Asparagus Linguini, Barramundi Buerre Blanc and a host of other innovative menu items, as well as burgers, flatbreads, salads and steaks. Granite City has restaurant locations in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Every Meal & Brew Handcrafted From Scratch Since 1999! Visit Granite City on the web at GCFB.net.

Legal: The opinions expressed here are my own. Responding to this post with a comment qualifies readers to enter. Duplicate posts do not increase chances of winning. The contest began at midnight CST on February 26, 2015 and will end at 11:59pm CST on March 4, 2015. One winner will be chosen via random-number generator on March 5, 2015 and announced the same day. Winner will receive a $25 gift card to Granite City. Granite City has provided the gift card for this giveaway. I have received information to help promote the restaurant as part of this giveaway. I attended a preview lunch event and a VIP dinner event for the launch of Granite City’s Schaumburg location as compensation for this post. Winner will be contacted via the Private Messaging feature of JillCataldo.com and via email. If a winner does not reply to the message within 48 hours of notification, that winner will forfeit the prize and a new winner will be chosen. Fulfillment will be handled by JillCataldo.com. Giveaway is only open to residents of the United States. Odds of winning are determined by number of eligible entries received. Good luck to everyone!

Comments

  5. My daughter and I just drove by the other day and wondered about the type of food there. The food looks amazing! :)

    Gotta’ ask- Jill, did you head over to the nearby Krispy Kreme afterwards to use your free doughnut coupon? :)

    Reply from Jill: No! I didn’t even think of it! I was so full after trying all these dishes & desserts!

  16. Schaumburg is right next door to me… But I have never been into that restaurant. It would be nice to check it out…. Food looks yummy

  23. Thanks for telling us about this place. I had not heard of it before. I love trying new restaurants–especially with shrimp tacos on the menu!

  30. There’s a new one in Naperville too! My husband and I went there for a date night not too long ago. Very nice staff!!!

  31. The is one close to me in Iowa, but I’ve honestly never ordered off of the menu. They have a great holiday brunch though. :)

  34. I love this place. I travel to Madison, WI frequently and the food and beer are fabulous. I am glad to see one coming to Schaumburg.

  37. Dear Winner,

    After looking at the menu, it seems to me the BEST DEAL would be to order off the HAPPY HOUR menu! The HAPPY HOURS are pretty extensive and covers at least FIVE HOURS a DAY on the weekends also!

  41. Everything in your photos looked delicious!! I hope I win! I love hearing about and trying different restaurants. Microbreweries all the better!

  43. I would love to try this restaurant with some friends. We take turns picking our meeting place and this would be perfect!

  46. My husband and I enjoy trying new restaurants. I’ve heard good reviews about the Naperville location.

  47. but would love to try it. I’m glad for these type of reviews – I would have never known they make everything to order!

  48. I’ve been to this place quite a few times – we have one in my hometown. Their burgers are great!

  49. The pictures look so good its making me hungry! I would love to go to the Schaumburg one. This would be a great bday gift to the hubby!

  51. My hometown is actually st. cloud and I didn’t realize they expanded. I would love to win this and then I can eat there my next visit home.

  52. I live in St.Cloud, so I really love this post! Granite City is definitely a favorite of mine! This is awesome, thank you for this giveaway!

jillcataldoheadshotI'm Jill Cataldo, founder of Super-Couponing® workshops and author of the nationally-syndicated newspaper column and video series "Super-Couponing Tips" enjoyed by over 20 million people each week.

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