HOBNOB Tavern

Coffee has many fine qualities: it gets you out of bed, keeps your wheels turning all day long, and provides last names for NFL players named Glen, but none of that matters, because it's not beer. For a former java joint now giving you what you really want, hit Hobnob Tavern

Grand opening today in what was formerly a Caribou Coffee, Hobnob's a modestly sized neighborhood tavern with orange/yellow walls, candelabra chandeliers, a stone-ringed fireplace, and a heated patio, founded by the bros who gave you Gilbert's in Midtown, and offering blessedly inexpensive comfort food, craft beers, and even alcoholic milkshakes -- made with the real stuff, as they firmly refuse to bring all the soys to the yard. Chew yourself silly starting with apps like Southern spring rolls w/ roasted pork, collards & cherry mustard marmalade, "Specialties" like fried fish sammies and short rib & lamb pizza, plus dinners like a pork shank braised in Sweetwater 420, and burgers like the beer-basted Piedmont, because they knew you wouldn't dare put Cheshire Bridge in your mouth. Brewed libations include bottled U.S. crafts like CA's Stone Arrogant Bastard and imports like the 10.5% ABV Belgian monk-brewed St. Bernardus, plus drafts like Left Hand Milk Stout, Allagash White, and Victory Prima Pilsner; that's all augmented by wine, house-infused vodkas (grapefruit, ginger, lemon...), and the aforementioned boozy shakes, notable among which is the vanilla extract/ice cream/honey/sesame-oil Sesame Street -- drink too many, and you too can live in a garbage can

Augmenting the mainstays're seasonally rotating suds like England's Samuel Smith, California's Lagunitas, and CO's Oskar Blues, which is exactly what you'll have when you draft Glen in the first round next year, and sadly realize that at 209 pounds and with a cheery disposition, he's just too light and sweet.