Mighty Squirrel Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Waltham

Mighty Squirrel is one of my favorite local microbrewers (I'd take a bath in their Cloud Candy IPA, I love it so much), and I only live a couple towns away, so it's ridiculous that it took me 3 years to finally visit their brewery/tap room in Waltham. But I finally made it, and it did not disappoint.

The space is large, including a bar area with 16 or so rotating taps (their usual flagship beers, plus some smaller-batch offerings not always available in stores), and a snack bar in the back that serves up bar bites (soft pretzels, chips/salsa/guac, empanadas, hot dogs, Belgian waffles). There is plenty of indoor seating, from which you can watch the brewers do their thing on the equipment in back, or watch people rock climbing in the gym next door through a cool shared glass wall. They also have two spacious patios outside, and a rotating daily schedule of food trucks on-site. Though not during our visit, they apparently also have occasional live music, as well as trivia on Wednesday nights.

We visited on a Friday night, which happened to also be the first Spring-like day/evening in mid-March, so it was absolutely packed. I'm not sure if it's always like that on weekends or we just got unlucky, but it might be worth stopping in on a weeknight if you're crowd-averse. It's certainly worth a visit, though, if you're into great craft beer in a...

I really liked their beer, so when my friends suggested we try visiting, I was down. It took us 2 1/2 hours to be seated, despite the fact that we could see empty tables the whole time (we were eventually seated at a table that had been open for the entire wait, and the party that came and sat next to us appeared to have simply snuck in, sat down, and been served.) The patio where we sat had mice visibly running around it. Service was okay, but we were required to use an app on our phones to order, which is kind of annoying when you can easily just tell the servers what you want. I recognize that this is a COVID thing, but the servers were happy to make recommendations and suggestions when delivering the drinks, so it accomplishes nothing to avoid speaking the first time if you're then going to engage later. I think it's a good thing that the staff was happy to make recommendations and provide more information, but I would have liked them before I ordered; they're rather useless in hindsight. The beer is great, but I'm more than a little turned off it having seen mice where it's made. I really hope they're able to improve the visitor experience in the future, because I really wanted to like visiting, but I...

We were a little nervous visiting a beer garden as we have not been out to a restaurant or brewery since before covid. We decided to drive by and evaluate the situation and then decide if we'd stay or just get some cans to go. To skip to the chase ... we stayed. We were extremely impressed with the area that MS has put together. It was lunchtime and not crowded at all, but the procedures they have adopted put us very much at ease ... masks unless seated at your table, tables spread far enough apart (i.e., not the bare minimum 6 feet) with an umbrella over each, order on your phone, and very quick delivery by masked servers who set their tray on your table and stepped back to allow you room to retrieve your order. They've covered the parking lot with artificial turf, surrounded the tables with a fence to control entry and exit, placed shrubbery in barrels to make it look less industrial, and brought in trailers with bathrooms. Thank you for all of this! Oh, and let's not forget the beers! Each beer we got was very tasty! ... and, yes, we got cans to go, too! :-) Order them online and they bring them out to a table in front of the...