The Rookery

For a Saturday evening this place was sadly empty. I think the burger joint next store took all the customers and I don’t blame them for passing up this place. The beer selection & menu isn’t that impressive. The food was sub par, with my burger lacking any flavor. I think it was way overpriced for the flavorless and boring meal I had. If they can get more of a beer selection and better tasting food they might be able to gain more business, but I won’t be going here again anytime soon.

In the former home of Joey’s BBQ on the corner of 2nd and Garey. The main entrance takes you into the bar area with the attached patio and there’s another large room in the back with a second bar and tables. Quite a few taps, but not a ton of beers on during this visit. A lot of local and California beers, but some Upright and imported stuff available, too. Didn’t try any food, but a friend said it was good. Simple menu focusing on upscale burgers and sandwiches with some classed up sides. Service was friendly and quick, prices were decent. Definitely worth a stop if you’re in the area or going to see a show at the Fox or Glasshouse. Hope this place does well, but Pomona is a tough place to do business.

Walked here on a Sunday afternoon from La Verne (trying to burn some calories) and it was empty. Not necessarily a bad thing since the service was pretty good.

They have ten taps though three of them had run out. I went with Alesmith IPA and baconmarmaladeburgerscan’tsail got a Dale Brothers tick. The menu looks pretty good; very simple with some burgers, sandwiches, and appetizers. They have a decent bottle selection but as is the norm these days they are expensive.

Hopefully this place will do well in a city not really known for beer.

Update: Raising the score a bit. They still seem to not be doing a ton of business but the beer selection has improved quite a bit. They have done several brewery events and usually have a good selection of San Diego brewers as well as some of the newer LA brewers on tap. Naturally, since the owners are beer nerds, lots of their friends bring in bottles to open and actually pay for very little. I understand that you feel good as a beer bro knowing that you can open a bottle at your friend’s restaurant without paying a corkage fee or whatever, but don’t be a cheap ass. Anyway, it’s a fun place when there are other people there. Still confused as to why they don’t do live music but they seem sure that they don’t want it.