Review: Beans & Barley goes against the grain

Beans & Barley
1901 North Ave.
(414) 278-7878
Hours: 8 AM-9 PM

Cuisine Type: American

Price per entrée: $5 – $10

Attire: Casual/Classy

Reservations: No

Accepts Credit Cards: Yes

Whenever I beeline from my Milwaukee apartment on the Upper East Side to the corner of North Ave. and Oakland Ave., with intentions of getting on the Green Line to head north, I olfactorily get blindsided by the sweeping scents from Beans & Barley, or the stereotypical hipster’s delight that is, yet, still casual enough for the entire (immediate) family.

Bracketed within the building is the restaurant bar, a gift shop and delicatessen. On this brisker-than-usual Thursday evening in Milwaukeean spring, I was with a friend whose dietary leanings have never tipped in the favor of vegetarianism (an important distinction that I’ll circle-back to later). We had both visited the restaurant before, though my first and only visit came nearly three years prior to this one.

The health-food store-converted-restaurant Beans & Barley, owned and operated by Polly Kaplan and James Neumeyer, is unique, in that it has only one location (until the one opens in the Mequon Public Market); the business doubles down by supporting locally grown food, which it has been doing for 40 years to the people who sit in the 80-seat café. With a reputation for being inclusive to those who abide by vegetarian, pescatarian and vegan diets, Beans & Barley cannot simply turn away even the pickiest of eaters. Anyway, since I check the second dietary box, I felt welcome.

Punctual was the server to our northwest location in the fixture, with the dinnertime crowd clearly dwindling; those who remained seated were chatting in a post-meal parlance, possessing their inner foodie and spewing reviews of what they had just engulfed. I decided on the walnut burger ($9), which was grilled and walled by a pretzel bun, mayo, lettuce and tomato, struggling to be original with my selection (if my memory serves me correctly, I had the same entrée during my first trip). The entrée came with kettle-cooked potato chips, which always posture as healthy, though these particular bunch were rife with salt and had me imbibing water every handful; that said, there was little to complain about, given the price range of the place – and it’s not like they were Lays-level bland.

When compared to other veggie patties I’ve had, this one was cooked finely. Many places are out-of-touch and nearly burn their patties. This time, the crunchiest comestible was the pretzel bun. With this considered, not sending the dish back was a victory in and of itself for the frequent veggie-burger eater. And, no, the walnut burger doesn’t taste dry and forgettable like straight-up walnuts. The taste punctuated the restaurant, whose dining area is lined with artwork, with large sprawling windows facing North Ave., street-side.

Back to my picky-eater point from earlier: if one refuses to eat beef and still wants a hot sandwich, and their protein fix, they can fall back on the walnut burger, the tofu burger ($7.50), or the balsamic tofu sandwich ($8.50). Vegans can satisfy themselves with those three (if the cheese is removed, of course, from the walnut burger). Pescatarians can rely on all of those, plus a fish cake sandwich ($10), or a tuna melt ($9). There is not a shortage of options; any audience, that, within it, has nuclear differences among its members, dietarily speaking, can thrive. Though my friend and I didn’t get an appetizer on this night, that list grows with black bean this, hummus that. The price-friendliness solidifies Beans & Barley’s credibility.

I’ll say this: I don’t go out for food very often. So, in terms of me locating a standard price for a walnut burger…, I may not be the best source. I imagine that throwing Beans and Barley’s walnut burger into the same pit as Red Robin’s veggie burger (whose patty is ancient grain and quinoa, runs $11 but comes with more toppings) and the exclusively vegan Riverwest Co-op’s comparison (a house-made seitan that goes by the Phamous Philly and runs $9), might be odd, but I think all places are respectable, for my budget, anyway.

The only thing that peeved me about the menu at Beans and Barley was the one-dollar upcharge to throw some avocados on a burger, which I refrained from, solely because of the price. I also got a 16-ounce, mango smoothie ($5), post-meal, which, to me, was priced accordingly. On another note that could peeve some: it took about 40 minutes to get our food, and, I believe, the server apologized for being late. This was a non-issue. (Whenever I go out, I expect the service to take 30 to 50 minutes, regardless of the business of the place. If I’m with someone whose presence I enjoy, rarely can I be found spouting off about the poor service.)

In summation, my experience at Beans & Barley was satisfying: the vegetarian options seem to be made by people who are considerate toward that crowd, and, like I said, not coming from an out-of-touch place. By all accounts, their meat-oriented dishes tend to be equally as reliable and genuinely prepped. Their menu is diverse and cannot be relegated or defined in any sort of way (i.e. a vegan restaurant, or, conversely, a place with limited options for the non-meat-eating crowd). I would recommend Beans and Barley to those unfamiliar. (Just make sure to bring your own pre-cut avocados!)

(Scored out of 5)

Service: 4.5

Setting: 5

Food: 5

Value: 4

Overall: 4.5