Location can be a little tricky to find and navigate to. If facing front of building, park on right side of building. Note, enter from the rear of the building and check in at the bar. I had heard good things about this place from coworkers but was not familiar with, so have been wanting to check it out.
The menu is driven by a QR code on the table courtesy of Toast. If this is your nightmare, I feel you. There are hard copies of drink menus, food menus, and specials, but everything is driven by the app which is most up to date; for example, the vegan mushroom burger was on the hard copy special menu, but was noted as out on the app.
WORTH NOTING! The app also giveth and taketh away on its own timetable. For example, we had arrived during lunch specials, but right before happy hour start. The two actually overlap by 30 minutes. So since it was my first time in and I was figuring everything out and taking everything in (there's a LOT going on!) I figured I would wait for happy hour to start before I placed my drink order on the app, and include a lunch special. Nope. The app took the lunch specials option off of the online menu at 2:30pm, even though the specials went until 3pm. No warning, no fine print, just poof, the menu option that was on the app before was simply gone before it was over. What does all this mean? It means that I paid $3 more dollars for the angus burger than I should have. It also means that when I mentioned it to the staff they did not offer to accommodate or address, I guess we are all just slaves to the app workflow? Poor form. It's not a special if I am paying full price duh!
Another example, since I was in the app to begin with before happy hour pricing started, there was no menu option available for it even after it began. I had to rescan the QR code, go back into the app in order to realize the happy hour menu option. Obviously my beef is with Toast and the app; and more about how it works, than the venue; but when a business leads with technology, especially the DIY kind, that then becomes the customer experience which in turn is a direct reflection on the business, like it or not. This hands off type of approach when well executed can be an amazing aid to the business allowing for all kinds of pros; but I feel there are still some use case scenario issues to be addressed here. If I sound like a geek, it's because I am. I used to do this for a living so it's close to home.
Outside of tech and the business' apathy to be responsible for it, the execution here is spot on.
The beers are good. First time in, we kept it simple and had a Fest and Pils. Paired with the angus burger and the smoked sweet potato which we put bbq sauce on. We did sample the BA El Zacaton which was amazing; and a Peanut butter beer that was WAY too sweet for this kid.
The kitchen for the small size of it I feel deserves some props. Why? Because
1) There's a LOT going on with the menu, check it out, all kinds of yummy options to consider
2) A work function came in after us which was a pretty good sized group that they started serving drinks and food to, so I was hoping my food order being fairly simple, would not take too long, and it certainly did not; and even better to boot, it looked JUST like the yummy picture on the menu which is fairly rare and does not happen often. How many times have you ordered something on the menu that looked amazing, only to receive something that looks totally different and disappointing. Not at the Cave, so props to the kitchen for bringing your A game!
There were only two staff working the floor when we were there, but both were very friendly, amiable, helpful, and more than willing to guide a couple nubes.
Not all, but some of the prices seemed a bit steep, so be mindful of that as all the many tempting eat and drink options can add up fast.
Also related to the app/tech/workflow, the inability to explore custom beer flights of your own choice. As far as I could tell, this option did not exist, which seemed really odd; but the staff seemed more than happy to provide you a taste sample.
I feel we did not even scratch the surface with this visit, so much more exploring to do here. Cheers! read more