Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub — Restaurant in Minneapolis

Smoking In The Back Room!

Smoking in the back room? Well, yeah, because everyone knows that smoking aint allowed in school especially the boys room. So where are they smoking? The back room of a restaurant of course, well to be more specific, a kitchen. And this type of smoking inside of restaurants is legal in the state of Minnesota.

The smoking that I'm referring to is a large structure that houses delicious meats that are cooked for several hours until it decides to fall off the bone. These structures, known scientifically as a smoker are found all over Kansas City, St. Louis, across the south and now right here in Minnesota. I'm positive that Vince, Nikki, Mick and Tommy, yeah that's right, The Crue (Motley Crue people) have even enjoyed some delicious smoked goodies (And I'm referring to food folks!). These boys would even appreciate the outstanding smoked goods found at the latest place we visited, the Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub.

A friend of ours told us he just had some amazing wings and he was recently at Northbound. His next comment was, "When is the Gnaw stopping by to try them?" Answer: The same day he contacted us! :) Located just off Hiawatha Ave. on 38th sits this quaint smokehouse and brewpub with a smell, that upon entering will overtake your senses. We pony'd up to the bar while we waited for our table and enjoyed one of five in-house brewed beers called Honey Wheat. Nothing like the wheat's we've had from other pubs and breweries and was outstanding. As we waited a sandwich was brought to the patrons next to us and I had to ask, "What's that?".

What was it? It was their 18-hour Porchetta Sandwich and you guessed it, was smoked for 18 hours. It's like we can read each others minds sometimes... We looked at each other with the same reaction "Guess we're getting that!". The bartender looked at us and chuckled, "Yeah, it's a must try!". Porchetta is bar far one of my all-time favorite meals and anytime I get a chance to have it, I most certainly will be. The full description is; The "Iron Range" classic, house-smoked shredded porchetta topped with Swiss cheese and sauteed onions on an egg bun, then served with with their house-made BBQ sauce. We also added a side of their hand-cut fries to our order and I've said this time and time again... We need more places serving hand-cut fries. They're simply better! Is your mouth watering yet?

I didn't forget about the wings, it's what we were ultimately heading there for in the first place. We went with them naked as we tend to do our first time at any place known for their wings. We want to get a feel for their overall flavor of course and asked for the buffalo and ranch for the side. One bite in and I was hooked! These things were cooked to perfection, but not everyone likes heavy smoked food and my wife just happens to be one of them. I on the other hand devouered all of them and if I wasn't full, would of asked for seconds. There was one thing that I would have changed and I got the chance to talk to Ryan, one of the managers about it. The food is so delicious and unique that they need to do the same thing with their buffalo sauce. Currently it's just Frank's and I guarantee that they can easily pull something outstanding off that sets them even further apart from the rest. See where they stand in the wing challenge, Flying Buffalo's?.

Yet another outstanding place to put on your "to visit" list and I'm definitely looking forward to heading back to try some more delicious smoked goods. I also want to try some more brews on tap and maybe when I return, they'll have a new buffalo sauce for me to test out for them. So while you're sitting there trying to figure out how to get Smoking In The Boys Room out of your head, consider singing your way to Northbound Smokehouse &...

I've done enough eating out that I understand that sometimes you just have a bad day. That was my recent experience at Northbound. I stopped by for a late lunch/early dinner/snack. Since their menu boasts the "Best Wings in the TC" and I'm a real Buffalo wings fan, I ordered their Buffalo wings. I also like to compare beer cheese soups among restaurants that offer it, so I ordered that, too. I finished it off with a Porter.

The Porter came first. It was fine. The beer cheese soup came next. It was quite good - worth recommending to other visitors.

Then came the wings. They looked fine, so I dug in. My first reaction was that the smoke flavor was overwhelming. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, as the name of the bar suggests I should expect that. But if you're not a REAL fan of smoke flavor, and if your food is done like my wings, the smoke flavor level may be stronger than you bargained for. I was still belching it up hours later.

If it had only been the smoky flavor, I would have written that off as a personal taste thing. But my wings were also nearly the consistency of rubber. I have never had to work so hard at chewing a chicken wing. I mentioned this to the server. He said that the wings are smoked first and then cooked and sauced, and the smoking process does sometimes cause them to get tough. That was certainly the case with mine. The server was nice enough to take the wings off my bill. I only ate 3-4 of the 8 that came in the serving.

One last item on the "maybe it was just a bad day" experience - I had to pick human hairs out of the wings before eating them. Not a lot, but sometimes just one puts you off your appetite. I also mentioned this to the server. Hopefully that message got to the kitchen.

So the bottom line for me on just one visit with wings, soup, and beer wasn't very positive. I'm hopeful that this was just an anomaly on my first visit here. The spirit and friendliness of the bar was really good. It would be a shame if others are having...

I met up with a few friends here one evening to have food and beer. My two friends arrived before my husband and I. We sat down and the server didn't take our drinks orders for a good ten minutes. The place wasn't even packed, it was 9pm on New Year's eve and a 1/3 of the restaurant was full. When our server finally came to take our orders, I asked her what kind of gravy was on the croquette, she says "normal gravy". Ok... normal gravy. Did you mean beef gravy? Maybe beef isn't normal to most people... could have been any type of gravy for all I knew. That was all the questions we were going to ask since this server couldn't explain any of the food items in detail. We ordered the croquettes, chicken wings and waffle battered cheese curds. It was all very disappointing. The croquettes were warm, not hot. The wings had a rubbery texture. The sweet waffle batter with the smoked cheese was not a good combination. Overall, the food was not worth it and the service was worse. It took another 15 minutes to order drinks. We finished our food and were just drinking beers. The server comes to our table and asks us what "our next plan was" and if we were ready for checks... we weren't ready to leave yet but hey, why not?? The server sure did want us to go and everything else in the restaurant was very dissatisfying so why not leave when she assumed we wanted to go? It was the one thing she did right all evening!

Overall, I would not recommend coming here to eat or to drink beer. Their beer wasn't worth this trip. I would recommend every other brewery with or without food over this place. You will have a much better time...