Growlers' New Menu Incites Facebook Backlash

The new menu changes to have produced mixed reactions among customers. One took it to Facebook in a big way.

Since July 20 Matt Bowler has acted as the admin of the “Restore Growlers Greatness” page. Bowler told Riverfront Times’ Gut Check that Growlers staff didn’t reveal much about the motivation behind the restaurant’s changes.

At the time of the Gut Check blog’s publication on July 30, the page had just shy of 50 fans, according to the blog. Bowler, who compared the growth of its fan base to milestones of the beer card club in his Facebook updates, announced Monday the page had surpassed its “symbolic goal of 132" (basically a beer card's worth of fans).

Fans of the page post to recall acquaintances met playing trivia games, earning their name on the beer wall, and arriving to a jam-packed parking lot on weekend evenings.

The Gut Check blog states they observed some negative comments to the restaurant’s Facebook page were deleted. A check by Patch on Aug. 9 found criticism, as well as links to Bowler’s Facebook page and the RFT blog post, were present on the Growlers page.

Growlers management has not yet responded to Patch requests for comment.

Make no mistake: the restaurant is still earning positive reviews, both on Yelp and in our Places directory.

Brian Gregory May, a self-proclaimed ex-employee, stood up on behalf of the restaurant on the “Restore Growlers Greatness” page.

“The beer selection’s fat has been trimmed (Who wants 30+ Sapporo clones anyway?),” he wrote, citing a new beer card system. “Sometimes, things change, and people are left screaming, ‘Who moved my cheese?!’ without considering the thought that, just maybe, things have changed for the better.”

Read what other customers have had to say about the on Patch and other platforms.

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