Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Head-spinning flavors at Crazy Uncle Mike’s in Boca Raton
Crazy Uncle Mike’s
6450 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton, 561-931-2889, CrazyUncle Mikes.com
A restaurateur from Las Vegas and New Mexico has debuted this music-centric brewpub in the former Zone Sports Lounge.
“While the area has many great upscale restaurants, several successful sport bars, a couple live venues and a few breweries, nobody offers that under one roof,” owner Mike Goodwin says. “Our musical selections will be as diverse as our food and beer menus.”
Expect to find at least eight of their beers on tap, including a core of five: amber, IPA, pilsner, English porter and Belgian wheat ($6 to $7.50).
“Once in a while, I do some crazy dessert beer or over-the-top IPA, but I like to focus on easy-drinking beers,” brewmaster Corey Wilson says. “Our oatmeal porter is light in roast and big on malt. The oatmeal adds a cereal-sweet [malty flavor] and a rich body — all balanced out by burnt chocolate flavors.”
That porter is blended with Cuban coffee liqueur and spicy amaro for the Start Me Up cocktail ($13). “The porter helps give it a beautiful head without egg whites,” Wilson says.
Global fare features spicy heirloom carrots ($12), rock shrimp and manchego flatbread ($14) and grilled skirt steak with chimichurri ($24).
Lunch and dinner are served daily amid an industrial open-air vibe with an indoor/outdoor bar, garage door, lounge areas dispersed among tables, gray walls, crystal chandeliers, whiskey barrel light fixtures and wraparound patio with games. Weekend brunch is also available.
“The wood on the stage and the bars was collected on the streets of Boca Raton and Delray Beach after Hurricane Irma last September,” Goodwin says. “We gathered the old fences, cleaned, cut, sanded, stained, sealed and hung them.”
Musicians perform during happy hour on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and late night on Thursdays through Saturdays.