Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Frisco Grille To Expand, Says BBG Blog

Frisco Grille in Columbia will expand and double its beer taps from 20 to 40, according to the Baltimore Beer Guy blog. No firm date, but it's a big plus for one of Howard County's best places for beer.

(Update: The BBG says in a comment below that Frisco is taking over a tailor next door.)

16 comments:

Brandon Miller - Milhouse44 said...

now if only they could get a comfortable seating area around the bar for more than 10 people to enjoy 40 taps.

Sarah said...

Woo!

kam said...

Nice. Do you all think they'll move to the currently unoccupied corner location in the shopping center? I'm not sure if they can expand at their current spot.

m said...

I hope in the expansion they also expand their beer selection like Milhouse44 said. Not just the same casks from Oliver's and kegs from DFH. I sure think they can do well with a bigger place. Maybe also expand/improve their menu.

Baltimore Beer Guy said...

Kam,

They won't move to the corner. They'll acquire the tailors next door and expand into that space (~1000 square feet, I believe).

I believe the bar will be in that corner and should be more comfortable. More dining seating, more bar seating.

Jen said...

What tailor? All I know is that my drycleaner is in that plaza! I didn't know PubDog had closed, but it wasn't that great, so it is understandable.

Sarah said...

@Jen: Wait, what? Pub Dog closed?

Anonymous said...

More importantly - where's the tailor going? He did great work & such a nice man.

kam said...

Maybe my comment caused some confusion. To the best of my knowledge, Pub Dog's still alive and well. What I meant was the corner space between Mongolian Grill and either the tailor or the florist that used to be occuped by a fabric store. It's been vacant for a while and seems fairly large, thus my question about whether or not Frisco would be moving there.

However, if I'd noticed the link to BBG's post, I'd have gotten my answer without even needing to ask, so mea culpa. ^^; BBG was also nice enough to point it out here.

BeerGuy said...

Hmm, maybe its a dry cleaner, I never pay attention to the place but yeh the shop next door to Frisco, not the coffee shop but the other side.

Yeh was about to say, whoah, Pub Dog closed? I usually don't look over there, barely would have noticed although I'm overdue to have a beer there sometime.

Brendela said...

Not the tailor! Those guys are so nice and they do fantastic work! Who is going to hem all of my pants now? I certainly won't go back to the dry cleaner in that shopping center after they lost one of my husband's shirts and then fought with us about paying for it.

Rob said...

They need to do a much, much better job with beer selection and ambiance. BBG, there is more to craft beer than hopped up ales. And the glorified cafeteria ambiance leaves me very cold. Judges Bench has a far far superior beer selection.

BeerGuy said...

NOT hopped up ales on right now:

Boulder Stout
Resurrection
Corsendonk Christmas
Murphys Irish
Old Dominion Winter
Ommegang 3 Philosophers
Oskar Blues Old Chub
Smuttynose Farmhouse
Wild Goose Snow Goose
Wild Goose IPA (a British style IPA)
Williams Bros. 80/-

You're being unfair.

I'm fine w/people not liking Frisco but its a fine beer bar especially for Maryland.

I really like Judges too, but their selection isn't all that different from Frisco, I just don't buy that claim.

The ambiance is what it is, Frisco was first and foremost a burrito place that changed its business model to become both a beer bar and loosely defined Southwestern dining place. The bar is crowded at certain times but the expansion should remedy that.

Rob said...

Not trying to hijack How's blog, so we can agree to disagree. Maybe I caught them on a bad night, but when I tried it, they didn't have one good Pilsner on tap. Maybe with additional taps that will change.

BeerGuy said...

Fair enough but honestly outside of Max's I don't think most MD beer bars really carry good/many pilsners on tap in general.

I've talked to Mike at Judges and he has a rotation of about 2-3 pilsners he always has at least one on (Kronenbourg 1664, Scrimshaw, etc.) mostly to entice the Bud/Miller/Coors folks to try something in the Budweiser style that isn't Bud and just generally serve something lighter (and flavorful) for the more casual beer drinkers.

I gotta believe when Frisco pushes to 40 taps that they'll accommodate something more in that range.

Oddly, I find the places most pilsner/lager/Kolsch friendly are in DC, they get a couple taps from overseas I simply have not seen here in MD other than at Maxs which can afford to do so with their 70+ taps.

Vk@Nyte said...

40 taps is alot by the way, alot more than any bar around here!!so what if the seats suck or the ambieance isn't great-would you rather drive to B-more??chances of Dui??or a cheap cab ride??The competition for beer in the area is getting bigger and it makes sense to stay ahead of the game. Also its a matter of wor of mouth and from what I've heard,its been the tops for some time... I also love the Bench, when I can get down there but you can never really mingle in there..tables are hazardous..