It has been a while since we had visited Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood, so I was excited that my older child, the craft beer expert, had selected it for Saturday lunch. In the past they had always had a good selection of interesting lunch selections and also some worthy brunch selections on Saturdays. On this rainy morning we noticed the lot was not very full yet so we were able to grab a parking spot close to the door, and we were seated at a roomy booth in the corner of the dining area.
After we were seated we looked around for the full menu, for all we could find was the much shorter brunch menu. When we asked our server, we discovered the brunch menu was now the only one we could use until 2:00 pm. They had a few lunch options, but it was mostly breakfast options. We decided to make the best of it and see what we could order from that menu. My wife ordered the turkey club sandwich, my mother-in-law ordered the cinnamon roll special, my son ordered the huevos rancheros and his older sibling selected the french toast. I decided on the blackened chicken salad sandwich with the chicken tortilla soup.
As we waited we received our beverages, with my son drinking some strange Ski lemon-orange soda and my wife found her iced tea had some unusual added flavor in it. Different is not always better, and my wife would have preferred some more standard iced tea. (Luckily I selected good, old Missouri water which is always refreshing, and very consistent too!)
Our food arrived in a reasonable time. My wife was not impressed with her club sandwich, where the turkey was too thick and the bacon was also too thick and not crisp enough. She is still on her search for the best turkey club sandwich in the area since Camille's has closed down. Her potato salad was also not that exciting. She would have preferred a more standard turkey club sandwich. My son did like his huevos rancheros which was spread on a very large crisp tortilla with plenty of tasty stuff in the middle. His older sibling thought the French Toast needed more powdered sugar on it, and was not all that impressive with no butter served with it. My blackened chicken salad sandwich was okay, but I thought being "blackened" it would have more flavor without my having to add a lot of Cholula sauce. The bread was also bit greasy and the chicken salad did not have that much ingredients in it besides chicken, celery and onions. The chicken tortilla soup was quite tasty with crisp tortillas and melted cheese on top, but unfortunately the portion they gave me with the sandwich was pretty tiny. I would have preferred having more soup and less sandwich! The best of our selections was probably the cinnamon rolls which we all shared. It is hard to go wrong with warm, freshly iced cinnamon rolls.
The service was pretty good, and it was fun looking through all the different beers they offered, but it seems that Schalfly Bottleworks is not as good of a place to eat our Saturday lunches as it had been in the past with its more extensive full menu available. Looking back at my reviews I noticed it had been five years since I last reviewed eating there. As much as we like them, we may have to remember that the weekend brunch time may not be the best time to visit them for a meal, and it may better to come back at dinner time when they are serving their full menu.
Weekend Lunchtime Menu (compared to Schlafly Bottleworks circa 2012)
Overall food quality
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