We are back in business! Folks we had to wait an agonizing few days prior to our benevolent king Gavin Newsom reopening the state, but we are back to doing restaurant reviews.
Ambiance: Hungry Pecker opened about 9 months or so ago “allegedly” since all bars were ordered closed by King Newsom. The place is an old warehouse I think they used to refurbish hot tubs out of it. However, it was very nice inside, they had a few seating tables, a high-top bar area, and a separate room where the beer making process is located. They also had ample outdoor seating. This seems like a cool place to grab a cold one with the fellas after work. While the outside could use a little fixing up, I call it a work in progress, and I give a slight pass. 4.3/5
Drinks: They had about 8 beers on tap, with typical varying alcohol amounts. A couple took the names of local streets in Elk Grove. I tried, I believe it was called the Porto Rosa Porter, it’s about 8% alcohol and it was quite good.
Johnnie Does Sr. had a light beer, he felt the same, even ordering a second. I would give it a 4.5. Just a note, I am not a drinker, basically gave it up years ago, I’ll have a cold one with my father every so often, but I choose to “hoof it home” as the kids say.
Overall: It’s a cool local joint, has some potential… quite a bit actually. I would argue between this joint, Waterman Brewing Company, Tilted Mash, and Flatland–just to name a few–my home zip code is more than covered with local brew pubs. I seriously would wonder about cannibalization.
My overall grade will look bad, and this is not the intention, but man a couple things need to get cleaned up here…. badly…..and pronto. First, the bartender gal (likely owners’ daughter, wife) had a “what do you want” attitude rather than a “welcome in” one. This was largely off putting, and she couldn’t be bothered to explain the drinks to us. We only asked about which beers are lighter vs darker. She served us and pointed to a couple tables over yonder. She came by later to check on us and lamented the very sparse crowd for a Saturday at 6pm. She said they had tried everything, axe throwing, corn hole, and even have BBQ here every Saturday, nothing has been working. Might be due to having no atmosphere and very little in the way of customer experiences. In many ways this reminded me of a fundraiser bar for a crab feed. What do you want? Ok, here ya go. NEXT! 1.5/5 Gotta get this turned around quickly.
Bonus Review: JP B QUE located in the Hungry Pecker as a food option. It’s an Indy BBQ guy, who judging by his size, looks like he loves his own cooking. He had menus out on the tables and had a buffet type set up outside. I was actually looking for some decent BBQ. Had a taste for it. There was no BBQ, smoker, or grill anywhere to be found. Odd, since, well half the experience is the smell trying to draw you in or make you crave BBQ. Weirder yet as the owner walked to the restroom right near us; he said under his breath “Its leftover from an event earlier today”. Yikes 0/5 avoid this place like the black plague! This is not a surprise as most “mobile” operations do this, rather than cook fresh they offer to re-heat after taking the leftovers from another gathering. This is a dangerous practice, first it was quite hot outside, and the pans were half covered. This causes very serious food borne illness bacteria to form. As much as I hate to say this, JP B Que will never get another look from this reviewer. Quite frankly I do not think the owner fully understood what he was doing. He could get folks extremely sick.
Full disclosure: I have seen a smoker out there on the patio before, not sure why he changed it up this day. But Yikes.
Johnnie Does
P.S. I saw the attempted clean shot by the “Troll” calling me a waste of time and resources on this news site, well let me fire a clean shot at him. Dear Troll: maybe Jake the Snake would like to discuss “Thou shalt not commit adultery” with you, as you seem to love a married woman, Carli Lloyd. Stick to what you do best; namely, ogling celebrities in your basement and cranking out 1 blog a month when your mom’s not home.