Surly Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Minneapolis

IF YOU ARE PLANNING AN EVENT AT SURLY PLEASE READ!!! ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED. We met Katie and she was charming and said Surly would bend over backwards to make our wedding special. We quickly paid the $1000 to secure our reservation. It started with the tasting. My wife and I both took the day off work to be there on a weekday. When we got to Surly it was more of a corporate offering with chicken fingers etc. We had already told them that we wanted a plated dinner. No plated options were available for tasting.They had 3 of the 8 plated options displayed so we could see what they would look like. If we can’t eat it, why only 3 of the 8 available options? "Too expensive to make", they said. After complaining we were able to set up a private tasting on a Saturday. Being taken advantage of without advocating for yourself was a pattern the whole time we worked with Surly.My Texas wife wanted sweet tea. Surly told us they would provide us un-sweet tea and “If their distributor could get it” they would provide sweetener AKA Simple Syrup. For 40 DOLLARS PER GALLON. for unsweet tea We wanted different chairs. Katie said we could drop them off Friday for the Saturday ceremony. She told the chair company that they could only be dropped off on Saturday. We had to advocate for ourselves to get them Friday as previously planned. We had trouble with security. My wife arrived at Surly right before the ceremony for her grand entrance. Security tried to stop my wife from entering without her id. One of her bridesmaids told security that the wedding had started before they were allowed to enter. Later my brother went downstairs to see if the getaway car had arrived. Security watched him walk out, and then wouldn’t let him reenter without showing his id. They marked his hand so he couldn’t drink. He gave them his id for them to hold onto since he was in a hurry. Ten minutes later he came back downstairs to get his ID and the same security guy acted like he had no idea who he was and demanded he give his full name DOB so he could identify him. He did and the guy pulled his id out of his pocket without even looking at it. My brother was in a suit and had a boutonniere on. There are lights on the fermentation tanks. You can see them from the event space. It costs extra to have those colored lights changed. It also costs extra to use their projector screen.We didn’t want the screen. We told them that. We did want the lights changed from hideous blue to a more neutral color. The day of the wedding both of these were “broken.” The screen was down during the entire ceremony. My wife’s mother tried to get Surly staff to put the screen up before the ceremony, and Katie told her not to worry about it, but she never actually fixed it. They told us it was broken only after we complained about it. After this complaint we never saw Katie again.The screen was up during the reception, but somehow broken during the ceremony? We don't know why the screen was down in the first place. We had a rehearsal the day before the wedding and the screen was up as planned. Surly, and especially Katie, never ceased to amaze me with their ineptitude. She would smile and say “Ok! My pleasure! Whatever you want!” and never ever delivered. I don’t really care that I had to take off work to not try any food that we were offered. I didn’t mind not having sweet tea because it was so overpriced. I CARE THAT EVERY SINGLE PICTURE THAT WAS TAKEN OF MY CEREMONY IS UNFRAMEABLE OR USABLE IN ANY WAY. Every picture of my beautiful wife on our special day is ruined. It looks like a green screen from a behind-the-scenes comic book movie photo. It is all you can see in the pictures, WE HAD A LOT OF PICTURES. $4,000 dollars for a wedding photographer and it was all for nothing because Surly “broke” the projector screen on the day of my wedding. We just got our pictures back. I am so...

Disappointing, compared to previous years where it was really my #1 go-to for out-of-town business visitors that would enjoy the atmosphere.

Apparently COVID left them permanently for the worse; we were there just after lunch on Mother's Day May 12 2024 and while it was nicely busy, beautiful day, it wasn't jam-packed.

We originally found a table that had just been vacated; after nobody noticing it had to be cleared or even acknowledging we were present (maybe they thought that was our stuff?), we relocated to an already-clean one.

Unfortunately, at least on the printed menu, it seems they no longer offer their delicious cornbread.

They have little signs saying you can order from your phone, but they also have menus lying around; I'm not sure if you HAVE to order by phone? After a good 10+ mins without any server even coming close, we ordered using the phone (which as far as we can tell doesn't allow you to ask for water?). Eventually our food came out, first the burger....then a few mins later my cubano....then a few minutes later the pretzel....then a few minutes later the fries. Perhaps (?) another 5-8 mins the fries arrived. We had to ask for the salad after that didn't show up for quite a while. It did finally arrive.

The food was basically ok, suburban-chain quality like a Chilis or Applebees but the prices were pretty steep $15 burger or salad (!lol), $16 cubano (no accompaniments to anything, naturally). Portions were not ample, certainly; my cubano was 2 4" triangle flatbread sandwiches about the thickness of a deck of cards. The beer's still basically good; I would have liked the option of at least one simple porter or stout on the menu, but apparently most of the fancy-pants beer public wants grapefruit-bitter ipa's. C'est la vie. The only dark I could find on the menu was a coffee one which fru-fru flavors aren't really my forte. It was drinkable, but the coffee was overwhelming the actual beer. Again, that's my preferences, not necessarily yours.

All in all, average food, pretty bad service, high prices...and that's before we even get to the tab: Dear Surly: if you slap a flat TWENTY PERCENT CHARGE on all bills (that $15 salad is ACTUALLY $18 we just don't want to print that!) and then have the gall to say 'by the way this isn't a tip' implying strongly we should still tip on top of that? Ha ah aha ha. Sure.

I might come back if they have food trucks. Atmosphere is still good. Food quality and value has tumbled badly from pre-Covid days.

I get it, Covid was hard on businesses (and Minneapolis moreso) and I try to be forgiving but there are a lot of restaurants out there that have snapped back and are flourishing now. Yes, they too are pricier than they used to be, but their quality and service justify it. I'm not sure Surly's...

Let me start off by saying that this review is only for the Pizza Upstairs spot and does not relate to the beer. I like to review pizza spots by trying just the plain cheese (they call it the Kevin) as that is my barometer for how much care they put into their most basic elements.The dough and how it is cook are the best part of the pizza. I asked the chef and he said that their dough ferments for 4-5 days and that gives alot of flavor and texture to the dough. I love how the pizza is cooked. It results in a really thin crispy pizza. If you like you pizza cooked almost to burn like i do, you will love this. A big issue is that the normal Kevin does not have enough sauce. They really need to add more and it gets exponentially better when you ask for extra sauce. Now of course you have to pay for that but its worth it. If i were consulted by Surly i would just increase the cost of the pizza from $9.25 to $10 and add more sauce and it would make everyone happy. My biggest complaint with this pizza is the cheese. Its sooooooo oily. It is not very attractive to look at it when you open the to go box. I am not sure what that is due to. It almost seems like the heat of the breaks down the cheese to that oily consistency like the just need a cheese that can tolerate the higher heat (not and expert just a guess). Now that would all be fine if the cheese was really flavorful but it is pretty bland. I do not think they add any salty cheese like Pecorino or Parmesan but just a smidge of that would make it so much better. Overall i give the pizza a 7.1 out of 10. It nails the hard things (dough, perfectly cooked) and would be soooo much improved it the cheese was better/less oily and it had more tomato sauce. The service there was just ok not very friendly and not rude. The place had great vibes and if you like beer you would love it here. Total side not but this place does not allow take-out orders. Pet peeve of mine when places do not take take-out orders on the phone. So just keep that in mind. Order online or just when you get there....