Business 'Really Good' on Granite City Food & Brewery's Opening Day

After the pomp and circumstance surrounding its and two days of servig roughly 800 "practice" meals to friends and families of employees, the brand-new quietly late Tuesday morning.

"Business has been really good," Managing Partner Michael McBride said Tuesday afternoon. "We did a soft opening, and we didn't drive it very hard. We didn't want our guests to feel overloaded today."

McBride, sitting on a stuffed leather bench in the atrium, said business has been steady so far, and customers are giving good feedback about the new restaurant. Nearby, Canton resident Raquel Fellings and coworker Lisa Hysko, of Shelby Township, sat at a high-top table near the bar enjoying lunch.

"This is a business lunch," Fellings, district manager for Great Lakes Wine & Spirits, said Tuesday afternoon as she sipped a Flying Monkey cocktail. "The food is very, very good, I love the atmosphere, and the service and cocktails are great."

Hysko, sipping a pomegranate mojito, agreed. "The food is just terrific," she said.

Across the aisle from Fellings and Hysko, Fortney-Weygandt Project Superintendent Bob McBride, whose construction team built the restaurant and brewery from scratch, enjoyed a meal with Clinton Township resident John Yates and Scott Lucas, project electrical foreman, before getting back to work.

"It was a prototype, so we ran into many setbacks," he said. "The toughest issue we faced was that everything is new, and nobody understands where things are going because nobody's built one yet. ... There were a lot of loopholes and things that didn't work."

But the crew finally finished, and McBride, a Missouri resident, said he's considering moving to Michigan permanently after spending seven months constructing Granite City Food & Brewery. "I like it here," he said.

Lucas said helping build a brewery was different, though he enjoyed it. "I liked the detail work and a lot of the fittings," he said. "You don't work on that type of (brewery) equipment very often."

Yates, sipping a soft drink next to Lucas, said he did not work on the project, but he thinks the building "is just nice-looking, and the food is good."

During Grand Opening Week (May 8-14), guests who visit Granite City Food & Brewery will receive a free membership to the Mug Club, which earns members 10 percent off of food, special beer tap offerings and other rewards. The restaurant will also donate 5 percent of all Grand Opening Week sales to the Children's Leukemia Foundation of Michigan.

Granite City Food & Brewery is open from 11 a.m.- midnight Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday. The restaurant and brewery will be offering this Sunday from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.; adults are $19.95 each, children 7-12 years old are $6.95, and children 7 years and under are free. Call 612-799-2681 or 248-519-1040 or email mmcbride@gcfb.net to make a reservation.

For more information about Granite City Food & Brewery, visit www.gcfb.com.