Cranker's Restaurant & Brewery

My wife and I stopped here for lunch and to try their beers. The place was not busy at mid-afternoon so we took a table in the bar area. This pub is located in a former fast food place and is located along a busy commercial corridor just east of US-131. The interior has had a good attempt at remodeling to hide the fast food layout, but it still mostly resembles a restaurant that serves their own beer. They retained the drive-up window, and have added a few tables to a small patio at the front of the building. We discovered that they do have brewing equipment here, and that they serve some of their own beers as well as mostly the core brands brewed at the main location of this multi-pub brewery.

We ordered a sampler flight of 7 of the 10 beers that were available, skipping the ones that were just a blend of two of the beers. The beers were all brewed very well to style so that our scoring mechanism gave them an overall grade of B minus. The notable beer was the Dark Space Chocolate Porter, which tasted like it had a major dose of Hershey's syrup in it, and close behind it for being a favorite was the End of the World double IPA.

The food menu is very similar to a coney hot dog place and has something for everyone. We really enjoyed what we ordered, so kudos to the kitchen for keeping up with the brewer for showcasing the food equally with the beer. This place is well worth a visit, and is a quick stop off of the highway for anyone traveling to/from GR/Kzoo.

Nothing special. Pretty similar to the main location in Big Rapids, but without the drunk college crowd. Beers are decent, food is good. Service was poor even though there were maybe 4 tables with people including us.