Heading to Excelsior for the weekend. Any brewpubs/rests, that have good beer/food, kid friendly. I would like to keep driving down to less than 20min or so. Thanks!!
Looks like there are about eight locals listed as next to the Excelsior brewery itself: http://excelsiorbrew.com/locations/ Also, Pizza Luce in Hopkins is near Steel Toe, being east of Excelsior a little ways but would be great place to sample beers from both of those breweries (as well as Lucid, Badger Hill, and Surly -- I recall that location has a great taplist ).
Hazellewood Grill usually has Surly/Summit and is in Excelsior and is kid friendly with good food. Otherwise I prefer Gold Nugget (Minnetonka/Glen Lake neighborhood) and the kiddos crush their Mac n' cheese, they got lots o' local beer options; Lucid, Surly, Excelsior and good burgers too. I'm not a big kids @ Jake O'Connors (in Excelsior) guy, but mine have been there, didn't care much for the food though. I suppose you could do worse than the Eden Prairie Old Chicago which is pretty nice for a OC... all things are relative, right? Santorini (EP) - Solid restaurant with okay tap list I'd +1 Pizza Luce too... but if you're gonna drive that far you may as well just go to Edina Grill/Pig n' fiddle or someplace in Uptown or Mpls. Other Considerations that may or may not work for varying reasons (Price, kids, food, taps vs. bottles, etc): Woodys Grill (EP- good food, hit n miss on beer) Pairings (Minnetonka-only a couple taps... but a wine/beer store attached that you can pick up bottles to drink in the restaurant) Wildfire (EP) ($pendy) Vics (Victoria) Dive burger joint Surly n Lucid taps... kid friendly till 8ish, then not so much. PS- no brewpubs in SW burbs... but you can get samples occasionally @ Excelsior brewing, Lucid, Badger Hill & Steel Toe.
Of course there's Excelsior Brewing taproom, but Pizza Luce has a stellar taplist as well. Otherwise Gold Nugget is always a great call, awesome food and a solid taplist.
