Route 2 Taproom — Restaurant in Monroe

A friend of mine, well to be honest, my ex of 13 years was diagnosed about 3,4 months ago terminally ill. He's been a founder/ regular at the Route for some time. When healthy, it was his home away from home. That being said, he's cultivated and maintained some great friendships w/staff & patrons. A week ago this A++++ staff (Stephanie, Amy, Kelsie & others) combined a trivia-brewers night w/his cousin Matt, owner/brewmaster of Stanwood's SAAL Brewing Co. in his honor. Staff combined private donations, tips & profits tapped from SAAL's 'Robert's Red' to help my ex with his surmounting medical bills. Such genuine kindness, generosity, love & appreciation for him!! That's definitely a local business I want to support whether I drink or not.

Super fun & chill atmosphere w/indoor and weather permitting outdoor seating. They have an active fb page for goings-on and events as well as a web site to see what they have on tap.

That being said. Their loaded tots are quite tasty and if you ever have an opportunity to be there when they run a special for the mushroom swiss burger 🍔 😋 BUY IT! Do not pass go!! It's SO delicious. Can you tell it's my fav?

Side note for ice junkies: ( meaning, I love ice. Love it like, if you don't have ice in your freezer? Don't take it personal, but there may be something wrong with you.) Route 2 ice is the super delicious, compact, tiny ice cubes like tacotime has and I'm living for it. They also provide your table with a fancy water bottle to make refills easy.

Good place, Good food, Great people. Route 2 is...

The people that work there are pleasant and inviting. It feels like this place has more "regulars " versus general public. It is a Taproom but it smelled like beer was spillt on the floor and not properly washed up. The rest of the restaurant looked clean and quaint. We actually didn't order any alcoholic beverages. But they had an amazing list. So if that's what you're there for I'm sure you'll be really happy with it. What we did order for food left a lot to be desired. My daughter ordered chicken strips. Thats the best thing we were served. They were crispy, moist, and delicious. I got the Grilled Cheese on Crack. I wouldn't waste money on that again. It's 2 fluffy pieces of bread with just american cheese slices inside and grilled on the outside with pulled pork and bbq sauce. For something named "Grilled Cheese on Crack" you'd expect more flavor. Like other cheeses than just american singles sliced cheese. The mozarella sticks looked amazing. Each cheese stick is equal to 2-3 normal size cheese sticks. Cooked perfectly. Crispy on the inside and a cheese pull at least 12". But also lacking in flavor. Missing seasoning like salt and garlic. They tasted fresh though. Ours definitly did not taste like they were grilled in old grease. Tater tots again no seasoning, just fried tots. No flavor. And the onion rings were nothing exciting. The old Schwan's delivery truck onion rings are 10x better than what this place offered.

We wouldn't stop here again for food. If I really wanted a beer or a cider, I might...

Probably one of the worst dining experiences we have ever encountered. We are an easy going family who are major foodies and enjoy finding new digs to try! My husband and I both love some fresh seafood so we naturally ordered the Captains Platter. Fried oysters, fried shrimp and beer bartered fish and chips, sounds good, right??! First thing when it came out was it was huge and we were excited with the portion. Upon arrival BOTH my husband and my fish batter was completely soggy. I mean mush... I took a bite into my oyster it was goo! I almost threw up. One thing you don’t want to ever be turned off by is seafood! There is no room for error when it comes to it. We told our waitress who apologized and agreed it was not edible. They threw everything back into the fryer and came back with our dish. It was a lot better but at that point, we were having a hard time eating it. Our waitress then disappeared for over 15 minutes not asking if everything was better, no drinks to be refilled, nothing. We had our kiddos with us and we were ready for the check. The attention to detail of servicing our table was lacking, to put it nicely, the dishes were far from good and the overall experience was one so bad, we won’t be returning! I’ve never said that before until now. I hope you all have...