In the time I've been doing Road Tips (nearly 14 years now) there have been instances where I have been accused of not going to a place where I gave a so-so or bad review to for a second chance to possibly redeem themselves. I know that professional food critics will go to a restaurant two or three times before they write their reviews, but I don't quite have that luxury in my travels to different areas around the Midwest. However, this is a tale of two visits to the relatively new Big Swing Brewing Company in downtown Rock Island, IL. And both visits were diametrically opposite. In this case, the first visit was an eye-opener, the second was a large disappointment.
Last summer, the owners of the Blue Cat Brew Pub - siblings Dan and Martha Cleaveland - decided to sell the place after 24 years of being in business. Wanting to keep the legacy of the Blue Cat going, John Timmer, Shane Scott and Jon McAtee joined forces to purchase the business but decided to change the name of the place to Big Swing Brewing Co. They retained Dan Cleaveland as the brewmaster and Martha Cleaveland effectively retired from the business. Even though everything was basically in place for the brew pub, I understand they were having problems with getting the proper licensing and permits. Big Swing Brewing Co. finally opened in March of this year.
It was a Saturday night when we first went to Big Swing Brewing Company earlier this summer. We had been talking about going over there and we found ourselves across the river in Rock Island. We were able to find a parking spot in front of Big Swing Brewing Co. which was always tough when Blue Cat was open. Over the front windows, the neon sign of the Blue Cat Brewing Company was still attached to the facade of the building. A Big Swing logo sign was in one of the front windows, however.
The inside of Big Swing doesn't look much different from the old Blue Cat. The tanks were still behind windows behind the bar. There was the same booths along the south wall, the same tables were on the main floor and the walk-up dining area. Other than the Big Swing logos, it looked pretty much the same to us.
It wasn't long that our server for the evening - a young lady with the unique name of Raven - came over to greet us. She handed us a couple food menus and, very curiously, she asked if we wanted to start out with any appetizers just seconds after giving us our menus. She explained later on that it was only her second day on the job at Big Swing. She was friendly and outgoing, but service was a little choppy during our visit.
One of our favorite beers at the old Blue Cat was the Off the Rail pale ale. Knowing that Dan Cleaveland was still in charge of the brewing process, I was hoping to get one of those. Unfortunately, the Off the Rail was not one of the beers that they were offering. In fact, they only had 4 in-house beers on tap - none of which appealed to me. They did have other breweries beers in cans and bottles - they even had domestic beers from larger breweries, something that Blue Cat never had - and I ended up getting a Five Cities hazy IPA. I've had Five Cities beers from their brewery in Bettendorf and I haven't been very impressed with them. Their hazy IPA didn't trip my trigger, either.
The menu was heavy on sandwiches and burgers, but their entrees were rather interesting. The porter meat loaf is, I believe, a holdover from the old Blue Kat menu - or some variation of that. The hot beef sandwich and the pot roast also got my attention. Something on the appetizer part of the menu - the poutine - also caught my eye. And my wife noticed the fried dill pickle chips. She really likes deep fried pickles.
We placed our orders for our food and instead of getting a salad to start off, we both decided to try the soups at Big Swing. My wife ordered the soup of the day which was a chicken vegetable soup. It featured large chunks of carrots, potatoes and onions with tender chicken in a rich broth. She thought the soup was very good.
For some reason, the chili sounded good that evening. Now, I grew up in Newton, IA and everyone who went though the school system there remembers the chili they would serve once or twice a month that came with a big gooey cinnamon roll. A few years after I moved to Davenport nearly 30 years ago, we had a Super Bowl party at our house complete with chili and cinnamon rolls. My new friends from the area had never heard of such a thing, but my friends who grew up in Newton who I reconnected with in the Quad Cities knew exactly what I was doing. I'm proud to say that I've converted some people who grew up in the Quad's to the chili and cinnamon roll combination.
The Newton school chili had a distinct flavor with finely ground beef along with big chili beans. My first bite of Big Swing's chili caused a flashback - it tasted exactly like Newton schools chili! I was almost ecstatic as I tried another bite. I was telling my wife, "I've never had chili like the kind I had in school when I was growing up. This is the closest thing to that chili!" I even remarked to Raven and a couple other of the servers about the chili and how they needed to include a small cinnamon roll with it. I think they thought I was sort of nuts. I was so blown away by the chili that I texted two of my friends who grew up in Newton but were now living in Davenport - "They have Newton school chili at Big Swing Brewing!"
For our main dinner that evening, my wife got the grilled chicken sandwich, only without the brioche bun. A side of applesauce and cole slaw came with the chicken breast. She was worried at first glance that it would be overcooked and dried out from the grill markings on the chicken, but it turned out that it was tender and juicy. She was happy with her choice.
I went with the Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich. I knew that it couldn't be as good as the hot brown's I've had in my travels to Louisville over the years, but I thought it was interesting enough to give it a shot. Big Swing's variation of the hot brown was similar to what I'd had in Louisville - sliced turkey, bacon and a roasted tomato slice on a thick-cut slice of sourdough bread. A flavorful mornay sauce topped the sandwich and the mashed potatoes side. The hot brown was very good - a spot hitter, for me. It was a nice deviation from having a burger or a grilled sandwich.
We were impressed with our first visit to Big Swing that we decided to head back over a few weeks later on to have dinner. My taste buds were doing jumping jacks thinking of the chili and I had already made up my mind that I was going to get a bowl instead of a cup of the chili this time.
My wife and I walked in and we sort of found things a little disjointed in the place. The dining room off to the side had boxes and paperwork on top of the tables and booths. We thought that was pretty strange considering the place seemed to be packed and they had to turn away a large group because they couldn't accommodate them while we were there.
We were seated in the dining area near the bar that night and I wondered why no one was seated in the large corner booth. Upon further investigation, the table didn't have a stand and was sitting on the bench seats. It looked very strange and made me wonder what was going on.
But things went even worse after that. They still just had four of the Big Swing beers on tap - once again, none of them I was interested in - and I wasn't impressed with the offerings from other breweries on tap. I ended up getting a Founders All Day IPA that they had in a 20 ounce can.
But the big disappointment came with the menu. We noticed that they had about 75 percent of the menu highlighted by a yellow marker. When I asked the waitress what that meant when she brought back my beer she said, "Oh, the ones highlighted are what we have available." Notably to me, the chili, the Hot Brown sandwich, the poutine appetizer, the French dip sandwich, and the hot beef sandwich were the most glaring omissions. She said, "We lost the cook who was responsible for many of the items that we no longer offer." I immediately wanted to know where that cook went to so I could follow him there for his chili.
I was completely crestfallen - the place looked like shambles, they knocked a lot of good items off the menu, they still didn't have the Big Swing variation of the Off the Rail pale ale available. Quite seriously, if I hadn't had a beer in front of me, I think I would have gotten up and left. We ended up eating there that night - I had the reuben and my wife had one of Big Swing's grilled cheese sandwiches with grilled chicken added. We both thought our sandwiches were all right, but psychologically, I'm not certain anything was going to taste good to us that evening.
Our first visit to Big Swing Brewing Company was so promising to us that when we went back for our second visit a few weeks later we were completely deflated with our experience. They had taken many of the interesting food items we found during our first visit of the menu by the time we had gone back. Their beer selection is still iffy with only four in-house beers available on tap. The one dining area was messy like they were using it as an office or storage area. And they had a broken table sitting on the bench seats in the corner booth in the bar dining area. The food we had on our first visit was good to very good - it was tough to beat the chili that brought back memories of the chili we had in school growing up. But the sandwiches we had on our second visit were just "all right". Service both times was good, even though the service we experienced on our first visit was a little choppy from an unexperienced server. We were just so disappointed with our second visit and the revelations that a number of things we either liked or wanted to try were removed from the menu that it gave us pause about coming back to Big Swing any time soon.
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