Big Grove Brewery I 4601 Catalyst Ct I (531) 721-2912 I biggrove.com
When Big Grove Brewery approached Chef David Meegan about coming on board, they had him at “chef-driven brewery.” After stints at brew pubs in New York City and Omaha’s Benson district, Meegan craved the brewery culture. He jumped at the chance to lead Big Grove Brewery’s everything-from-scratch, locally-sourced kitchen in Omaha’s medical district.
Frozen, packaged, mass-produced menu items? Not here. “I have a guy back there hand-making pretzels right now, and another guy hand-making bao buns,” said Meegan, Big Grove’s Chef de Cuisine. “We make our own mayonnaise. We have a very talented pastry chef and make our own pastries and desserts every day. We make our own focaccia bread daily. We buy local mushrooms, local beets, local radishes. We try to keep it as chef-driven and organic as possible.”
Meegan maintains that commitment across Big Grove’s sprawling indoor/outdoor space. He hand-picked his staff he’d worked with from local restaurants, trusting them to pour heart and soul into bold, distinctive food. “It’s a big operation with the size of our location, but we can still have our chef instincts and serve thousands of people a week,” said Meegan, noting that Big Grove interviewed about 200-300 cooks and over 100 front-of-house staff to land his select crew. “You look around and wonder how it’s possible to do with this many seats, but we’re doing it with lots of organization and lots of talented people.”
Big Grove elevates standard brewery fare—burgers, wings, chicken sandwiches, and salads—with custom items like Asian-style crudo with homemade coconut vinaigrette and an Asian noodle bowl. The Reuben is one example of that elevated menu. Omaha owns this sandwich, but Meegan will put Big Grove’s up against any in the city: house-made corned beef cured for seven days, smoked overnight, shaved thin, then blended with fresh sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing.
The Brewer’s Board is art and appetite collided. A “bigger-than-your-head” handmade pretzel twists around holes filled with house-brewed beer cheese, sauerkraut, maple mustard, cornichon pickles, and house-made Jägerwurst sausage. Big Grove’s sausage starts with locally-sourced pork butt: marinated, house-ground, and stuffed in casings by three cooks working with assembly-line precision. “It’s amazing,” Meegan added. Joining that starter: daily-baked herb focaccia with high-quality olive oil, fresh-ground parmesan, and freshly ground pepper.
Speaking of spices, all arrive whole and get ground fresh in-house. Need black pepper? Big Grove buys peppercorns and grinds them. Cardamom ginger spice? Same treatment. “The freshness of our ground spices makes a huge difference,” Meegan said.
The prime rib French dip stands alone. Full ribeye, simply seasoned, slow-cooked—sometimes overnight—then blast-chilled and sliced thin. Add horseradish aioli made from house-made mayonnaise, Milton Creamery aged white cheddar, onions caramelized for hours, all served on a fresh hoagie roll with au jus. Want to skip the afternoon desk coma? Choose the tuna poke. It’s a deconstructed sushi roll with marinated sushi-grade tuna, mango chutney, fresh and pickled vegetables, Korean aioli, and seasoned rice.
Vegetarians won’t feel sidelined. The panini-style mushroom melt layers button and oyster mushrooms—locally sourced from Flavor Country Farms near Honey Creek in Iowa’s Loess Hills—with caramelized and roasted poblano peppers, chipotle aioli, Milton Creamery aged white cheddar, and spinach on focaccia baked mere hours before serving. The roasted mushroom pasta doubles down: same local mushrooms, cream wine garlic sauce made to order, chiles, baby spinach, grated Grana Padano, thick rigatoni, and—naturally—fresh-baked focaccia on the side. “I could live off of our bread and pasta,” Meegan said. “Actually, I think I probably do.”
All of Big Grove’s menu items pair effortlessly with any of its beers and eight house-made seltzers. “We take pride in crafting everything we serve right here at our brewery,” Meegan added. “Just like our fresh, locally inspired dishes, all our beers are currently brewed on-site, ensuring every pour is bold, fresh, and full of flavor. The beers on tap here are Omaha exclusives, brewed specifically for this location and available only in our taproom.”
Save room for dessert. Pastry chef Emma Osentoski crafts sweets that demand surrender: rotating cheesecake—coconut one week, mango honey or wild berry the next. Sticky toffee pudding with dates, brown butter crumble, fresh vanilla ice cream, smothered in an “absurd” amount of butterscotch, according to Osentoski. The wild berry pavlova’s meringue features whipped egg whites slowly cooked at low temperature, crispy outside, gooey inside, with the look and texture of a marshmallow. It’s topped with lemon curd and choice wild berries. Beyond those, Osentoski bakes cookies and pastries fresh daily to lure you into the adjacent Big Grove coffee shop.
All of it blends to provide an experience that Meegan boasts is unlike any other brewery. “We don’t cut corners anywhere,” he said. “You hear that from a lot of chefs, and then you hear it’s a brewery or a bar and not a lot of people realize we’re actually doing this—special touches everywhere.”
