MacNiven’s Restaurant and Bar

May 18, 2008
This was one of my favorite places in Indianapolis to eat and drink. I loved the Scottish influenced cuisine and the wide selection of beers. I went here three times in my five days in Indy and loved it each time.

March 11, 2008
Average bar, average service, good food, but high prices. If you like paying $6-$7 for a glass of beer, this is the place for you. A hangout for hipsters and yuppies. Very nice beer selection, but the prices just aren’t worth it. Glasses run about 3-4 times what I can get a bottle for, and I am cheap. If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, this would be a very cool place to drink some cool brews and eat some sausage filled eggs.

February 7, 2008
Great bar in a funky urban setting. Beverage selection is good for beers and great for scotch. Food is OK and interesting. Wait staff almost always fun and good. Non-smoking section available but it is still smoky.

July 1, 2007
not a huge selection but they rotate stock so there is always something new and interesting.

May 17, 2007
A fine experience. I was in Indy on a four day jaunt, and ended up going here twice. They’ve got a great garage-door looky-loo bar where you can hang out over the sidewalk. The chow is Irish pubfare and very filling - I had the Scotch Eggs and also the McHatten (roast beef and gravy over potatoes and toast) - both of which were fab. They were out of a number of the rares on their beer list, unfortunately, but they still had a respectable offering. Clean, ambient, top-notch service from waitresses with real silicone implants.

February 24, 2007
This was a nice find near downtown. We stopped in around 5pm on a Friday and the place was packed with after-work 30-somethings. The place has a nice old feel and a pretty decent tap and bottle list. We had Harviestons, Great Divide Hercules and DFH 60-minute on tap. The bottle list was about 100 bottles deep. The food (Haggis and Steak Pie) were both subpar, but the beer and atmosphere made up for it. Definitely recommended for a pint.

May 13, 2006
Highly recommended. A great spott on Mass Ave in downtown Indy. Nice ambiance from the smattering of Scottish flags, rugby and soccer items, James Bond pictures (all Connery), and pictures of St. Andrews. Even with all this it is not overly decorated like so many chain pubs. Sturdy solid wood furniture and an attentive staff made the visit nice. Okay, now to the beer. A dozen well selected beers on tap, a nice mix from Scottland, Ireland, and just enough from the US, all of which fit in nicely. They have a beer menu, two full pages of beers, probably at least 120 different bottles, seperated by style, with very respectable prices and a short description of each. I’m not a scotch guy, but they also had a large selection of Scotch, most in the 10, 12, and 18 year variety and quite a few blended wiskeys. I didn’t eat but the menu looked good, and I saw a few eating from plates that looked very nice. I definately recommend this place if you are in downtown Indy and looking for better beer. It has among the best selection in the metro Indy area.

December 29, 2005
A good spot if you plan your visit at a time when you can interact with the reasonably knowledgeable staff. Decent tap selection that rotates and a very good bottled selection. Food is rarely an attraction in a Brit/Scot/Irish pub, and it is hardly so here, but given the limitations of the type, this is above average.

December 9, 2005
So what exactly distinguishes a Scottish pub from an English or Irish one, you ask? James Bond pictures, apparently. However, this isn’t to imply that Macniven’s is just some faceless chain pub knockoff by any means. It has the typical Brit pub favoritism for dark wood and a cozy ambience not overtaken by a blaring jukebox or dozens of TVs. The dozen or so taps are well chosen, with the current prize being the He’brew 9, a tasty NY concoction representing 9 different malts and 9 different types of hops. Also represented are taps from Tennant’s, Bell’s, Upland’s and the usual Brit pub fare (Guinness, Bass, etc). The bottled selection is really where it’s at. Macniven’s has a full four panel menu printed up of their bottled selection with prices and a brief description of each. Overall the bottled selection favors imports, with both UK & Belgian beers getting equal props, but there are also a wealth of good US micros. Service was knowledgable and attentive, but I’ve come to take that for granted in a US Brit-style pub; it’s one of the reasons I frequent them to the inclusion of, say, sports bars for instance. All in all a fine addition to the downtown Indy beer scene.