Panino Brothers opened last night and Bill, Kim and I decided to check it out.
They’re in the ground floor of the GrandStay Hotel and are not a typical hotel bar. Their specialty is the Panino, or “little sandwich” that’s a thin layer of “panino dough” filled with meats, cheese and vegetables then baked and rolled. We were told they are “heaven on a plate,” but didn’t sample one yet. We’ll be back for that soon.
I was really pleased with the beers at Panino Brothers: a lot of local and regional craft brews on tap — something I didn’t expect in Apple Valley. A few Brau Brothers beers and a number of Schell Brewery brews on tap. This is not only great for the local patrons but I’m really pleased that they’ll be serving hotel visitors a taste of Minnesota in addition to the cheap macrobrews. They had a few Chicago beers as well — I had a Goose Island 312.
Not terribly hungry, we snacked on some cheese balls and a pepperoni pizza which they described as having a “homemade cracker style” but was really greasy, wet, messy and soft. I don’t think it’s fair to negatively judge on a restaurant’s first night so I’ll leave it at that. Bill noted it wasn’t listed as a “PB Favorite” either and honestly, they’re specializing on Paninos, not Pizza. Maybe they’ll get it fixed up in a few weeks.
Panino Brothers has lot of televisions and a couple Golden Tee Golf machines but they kept it from feeling like a sports bar. The place is welcoming and the staff we dealt with was very friendly and personable.
I’ll be back soon. This is a very welcome change in Apple Valley amongst all the chains and normal suburban junk and it’s especially great to have a place in this neck of the woods with a bunch of craft and local brews on tap.
Panino Brothers Food & Beverage
7083 153rd St W
Apple Valley, MN 55124
Comments 5
While I am not the pizza connoisseur that Aaron is, I agree that the pizza wasn’t all that great but as he said it isn’t what they claim to do there. Kim ordered their “cheese balls” which are basically cheddar cheese curds. While Kim enjoyed them, Aaron and I didn’t find them to be anything we’d be willing to order in the future.
I started off with a black and tan that was a little warm for my tastes but the Schell FireBrick I had later was perfect.
We’ll be back next weekend to sample the paninos as well as more of their beer offerings. I’m looking forward to it.
Thanks to Aaron and Kimmy for a fun night.
Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 11:01 ¶Is the bar stocked with anything other than beer?
Posted 27 Mar 2008 at 17:57 ¶jorn- Thanks for your comment. We were told that they had all “the basics,” in terms of mixers but they were going to have a full bar once everything gets shipped to them.
Posted 27 Mar 2008 at 18:02 ¶My husband loves Italian food and we were really looking forward to trying Panino Brothers. As we opened the door, the noise (music??) blasted; we turned around immediately and left.
Posted 17 May 2008 at 21:24 ¶Saw your post on the Duo Milk Stout and searched on “Brau”. Got a 6 of the Brau Brothers Cream Stout the other day, and the guy at 1st Grand in St. Paul said that they were going to stop carrying it due to some distributor issue. Would like to figure out where to get that on tap in St. Paul.
Posted 21 May 2008 at 14:46 ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] three of us visited Panino Brothers on their opening night, Friday March 21st, and enjoyed the atmosphere so much that we decided that we had to return just [...]
Post a Comment