776 N. Terminal DriveAnd it’s over. Our trip came to an end back at the Salt Lake City airport after 1100 miles and six days of traveling. It’s the first time in well over a decade that I actually had a week long paid vacation and it felt so good to get away and explore for a while, but reality was calling and J and I both had to get back to work.
We took a pretty late flight out of Salt Lake City International Airport on the last day of our trip, so we really didn’t get in to much of a hurry getting there. We drove down from Idaho Falls and went and returned our rental car then headed to the Frontier counter to check our bags.
A week earlier, when we arrived at the airport, we hurriedly walked past a brewery in the terminal on our way to pick up our baggage. We had talked about finding someplace in Salt Lake to eat before leaving, but we were both tired and just wanted to get in the terminal so we could relax. J suggested we just eat at the brewery inside the airport.
Gordon Biersch Brewery is inside the airport in the terminal right past the screening area. It’s on what they call the third level and can be reached by either escalator or elevator. The layout is pretty open as the restaurant overlooks the terminal and has a great view of the runways and mountains through the large windows that look out in to Salt Lake City.
Neither one of us were really hungry, but we did want something knowing we had a three hour flight and we’d be getting in to Chicago just before midnight.
Gordon Biersch is a chain of breweries that neither one of us had ever heard of. They have 35 locations in 19 states with the closest to Michigan being in Bolingbrook, Illinois. The chain is owned by CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries which also own Rock Bottom Brewery, Old Chicago, and several other smaller chains. The beers are German-style beers and the food is mostly scratch-made.
J and I were shown to a table in the middle of the dining room area. They also have a huge bar and several spots for the business travelers who need power outlets to work while they’re enjoying a beer or a meal.
The beer list, being German, didn’t do a whole lot for me when we sat down. After thinking about it for a while, I ordered the Hefeweizen. It didn’t do a lot for me, but it was smooth, light, and refreshing.
I wasn’t planning on ordering much to eat. I thought I’d just get an appetizer or something….and surprisingly, I did. The thing about that though…I ordered the Brewer’s Combo. This large plate of food included four chicken wings, three Kobe beef sliders, and garlic fries.
The sliders were really the thing I wanted so I started with them. They are American-style Kobe beef with a mustard sauce, and a kosher dill pickle on a house made roll. I easily could have eaten three size burgers of this delicious Kobe beef. Everything else was just a compliment. The mustard was just a dab on the bottom of it and the pickle just added a crunch. The beef was delicious on it’s own.
The wings were wings. They were nice and crispy with a spicy buffalo sauce. It wasn’t an overpowering spice. Just a nice spicy buffalo wing.
The garlic fries were really good. They were skin on fries that were dusted with salt, pepper, and a lot of garlic. I was afraid I would stink up the whole plane with garlic breath, but it was a chance I was willing to take.
J was also leaning towards just an appetizer, but settled on the Pulled Pork Sandwich instead. The pork is roasted as opposed to smoked and it’s swimming in a Marzen BBQ sauce then topped with cole slaw. J liked this sandwich a lot. The BBQ sauce was a little more bitter than sweet, but she said it was actually very tasty. Her sandwich came with Garlic Fries as well.
Our bill for this mean, in the airport, was just under $50 with tip. Gordon Biersch is very similar to it’s sister restaurants. It feels like a chain brewery/restaurant, but the food is very good. The best thing about this location is the view. You have a great view of the mountains from anywhere in the restaurant.
Hefeweizen
Brewer’s Combo
Pulled Pork w/Garlic Fries
