Father John's Restaurant & Microbrewery — Restaurant in Bryan

Father John’s was a mystically pleasant surprise. My fiancé, his mother and I are driving cross country together (NJ to CA) and she suggested stopping in Bryan for the night specifically for this brewery. I was skeptical, because we brew beer and have both worked at breweries, and I had never heard of this place. However, not only was the beer great, the food was awesome as well. Idk what everyone is talking about with slow service; our service was fine on a Saturday night. The ambiance is so cool and unexpected, definitely not for those offended by ‘blaspheme’, as there are religious books and iconography all over this former Methodist church basement as decoration. The sanctuary upstairs is also really cool to check out, as well as the outdoor seating area, where there was an amazing country blues artist playing steel guitar. Our food was fresh as hell and it was by far the coolest place we’ve stopped on our five day journey along i80 to California.

My only note is for whoever is writing copy for the beer list. Please check your descriptions of beer. One beer listed “Kviec” as a strain of yeast, but as a beer pedant, i feel it is necessary to mention that it is a type of a yeast extraction process from Scandinavia, specifically Norway. These are heirloom yeasts that vary greatly depending on where you get them, and each one has its own specific strain name and location. Also, we noticed the IBUs listed for all of the beers were insanely and impossibly higher than what they should be. IBUs (bitterness units) have a theoretically max value of 110 and an actual max value of 100. A typical American lager (like a Coors or Yuengling) has a max IBU of around 8. A super bitter double IPA might have a max IBU rating of around 85. Rarely do finished beers have IBU levels above 70, and if they do, it’s an indication to the beer enthusiast that they are basically undrinkable due to their extreme bitterness (not always, as in the case of Russian Imperial Stouts and some Barleywines). I think we saw a few beers on your list with crazy high IBU ratings and this scared us, but we tried the beer anyway and it turned out to be great. If you choose to have IBUs listed (it is 100% not necessary as most people don’t know what they mean), consider using the UV method to determine them accurately or at least using an online IBU calculator based on ingredients in and out, so that beer nerds like us won’t write long and whiny posts about it. (Lol)

Anyway everything was awesome and we had a great time. I hope we will get another opportunity to visit because Father Johns was a FANTASTIC brewery, and the haters on here don’t know what they’re...

So first off I’ve heard so many great things about Father John’s that I was so excited to go and have amazing food, drinks, and service. Unfortunately this might have been one of the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant and to make it even worse it was for a wedding rehearsal dinner that the bride was so excited about and had been in communication with the owner/manager for a few months before us coming there. So the wedding rehearsal dinner was on 09/22 and it was scheduled for 8pm. I will say we did arrive earlier than planned which we were just going to sit down at the bar and get drinks until they had our tables ready. They did however have our tables ready by the time we got there so they sat us down at 7:30. We ordered our first drinks at 7:45 and we didn’t even get our drinks until 45 minutes after we sat down and most people just got a beer. 45 minutes to get one drink is just ridiculous! On top of that we sat down at 7:30 and didn’t get our food until we were leaving the restaurant at 10pm with our food in to go boxes. Being there for 2 hours and 30 minutes and not getting food is just outrageous. The bride had her grandparents there and they were starving by the time they got their food on the way out of the building. Then they proceeded to charge us full price for the worst experience we ever had. The poor bride kept apologizing to all of her guest because she was so embarrassed. She literally worked with you guys months in advance planning this rehearsal dinner and for the service to be that bad is just unacceptable. Also everybody's to go bison burgers were so over cooked and dry when most of us ordered medium burgers. I just really hope the owner will reach out to the bride and apologize to her for the awful experience. Do better! I will say though the inside of the restaurant was beautiful. Just expected more for you guys since I’ve heard such wonderful things from other people about your...

Before Covid, it was worth it to drive an hour to have the large pretzel with warm creamy hand made cheese. I was in the area recently with a friend. I raved about the place, so, we went. We were quickly seated, brought water and asked if we were ready to order. Looking over the menu, I did not see the $12 Bavarian pretzel. Still, with high hopes, I ordered the pretzel that was on the menu. It was out in 2 minutes, which was a red flag. The previous pretzel was a work of art, soft, lightly glazed with butter, salted and served with a delectable cheese sauce. What sat before my guest and I was a miniscule dry, slightly hard, over salted microwaved monstrosity with luke warm grainy, pastey cheese. Bewildered but still, trying to make the best of it, we quickly revisited the scant menu. We came to the decision of chicken strips with fries. A sure thing, right? They were glorified chicken nuggets, presses into strips. The fries of my guest had rogue salid bits in it, scallion slices at the bottom of the pool of grease, mine had a cucumber seed (we had not ordered any salad). I am not one to complain, it was just such a disheartening experience, we ended up spending a good deal of money, for 2 people and still had to find something else to eat afterwards. Although the wait staff was nice and attentive, it was not enough to make up for the overpriced, underwhelming food. It is such a loss. With a heavy heart, I am very sad to say, we will...