This is a part of our outdoor dining guide for the Chicago suburbs and Northwest Indiana, where we fill you in on where to dine alfresco. So leave the picnic basket at home and check back here to see the full guide, which we will be updating throughout the week.
Customers at the Grumpy Goat Tavern can enjoy year-round views of the nine-hole golf course — and golfers — at The Highlands of Elgin, constructed to reclaim an old stone quarry.
It’s year-round because even though it may be cold outside, golfers are a hardy bunch and will be on the course even when it’s too chilly for diners to sit on the wraparound patio or three-season room.
“We’ve had golfers out in December,” said manager Susan Fennell. “The outdoor fireplace does help with cooler weather.”
And with four holes atop 30-foot bluffs, “You feel like you’re not in Elgin,” she said. “It’s nice and quiet, wonderful and calm. When you’re fully sitting outside, when everything is green, the view is pretty beautiful.”
Grumpy Goat Tavern is a Scottish pub that serves Creole-Cajun food. It serves po’boys, muffaletta and jambalaya, Creole meatloaf, and crawfish cake burgers. Cajun sweet potato fries and dirty rice are sides and there’s N’awlins bread pudding or Cajun mud pie for dessert.
Yet the pub is draped in tartan and sits within the golf course clubhouse. How did that happen?
The Scottish Highlands in northwest Scotland includes a town of Elgin, and not faraway was a family-run gastropub named Grumpy Goat. The local place practically named itself.
More Top Picks Best Digital Stethoscopes For Nurses
“Grumpy Goat Tavern seemed like a fitting name since we were both on the outskirts of Elgin,” Fennell said.
Chef Mike Taylor creates du jour items such as jazzed-up deviled eggs, flatbread and bread pudding. Recent examples include chicken and waffle deviled eggs; green apple, honey, pine nuts, bacon and green onion flatbread and salted caramel pretzel bread pudding.
“We change them often and that’s nice for the regulars,” Fennell said.
Not all items are Cajun or Creole. “The owners said, let’s do something different, nothing else around here has a Cajun-Creole theme. You may expect the golf theme, but we’re our own entity,” Fennell said.
Server Trudy Ward said one of the most popular dishes is the CBLT, one of four BLTs on the menu. One is classical, but there’s also a turkey avocado BLT wrap and DBLT with duck bacon and Creole aioli. The CBLT combines bourbon-candied bacon and Creole aioli.
“The bourbon brings the sweet and spicy to the bacon,” Ward said. “And pair it with the bacon jalapeno slaw for even more sweet and spicy.”
Fennell can’t point to a favorite meal: “Oh my gosh, I eat it all!” But she mentions the Creole Cobb, salmon Orleans with creole Hollandaise and Louisiana fried chicken with maque choux Alfredo cream sauce.
.
About the owners: Greg Shannon and Lou Gramm have owned Elgin Public House for 10 years. They bought Grumpy Goat Tavern four years ago after the exit of another restaurant there.
On the menu: A variety of Creole- and Cajun-influenced dishes. Daily $1 desserts. More than 50 bourbons, whiskeys and scotches. 12 craft beers on draft. More than 20 wines. Signature cocktails and martinis.
Specialties: Stuffed pork steak, Grumpy Goat filet and Creole chicken and biscuits, prime rib on the weekends and happy hour dishes like oysters Rockefeller, fried pickles, alligator bites and Cajun combo sliders.
Décor: Scottish and golf theme with tartan. “Our floor tiles look like wood, like herringbone,” Fennell said. “People comment on it all the time.” And on the outer sides of the bar are tiles decorated with white goats.
Prices: Salads from $3 to $14. BLTs from $9 to $11.50. Innovative sandwiches from $8.50 to $12. Slow-roasted sliced pork sandwiches from $10.50 to $12. Burgers from $8.50 to $17.75. Chicken sandwiches from $10.50 to $11.50. Beef and pork from $17 to $30. Chicken from $13.50 to $15. Pasta from $9 to $17. Seafood from $21 to $24. Specialties from $13 to $32. Happy hour specials from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m… Dessert from $1 to $16.
Amenities: Wraparound patio with an outdoor fireplace.
Grumpy Goat Tavern
Where: 875 Sports Way, Elgin
Category: Gastropub
Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday.
Information: 847-931-5950, www.grumpygoattavern.com