Rochester Taproom

I’ve been to the Rochester Taproom a couple times now, and I’ll say it’s solidly a 3 star place.
Parking directly in front of the building can be VERY tight. You can park across the street. Don’t park anywhere you’re not supposed to though, you will get towed. Quickly. Just read the signs and you’ll be okay.
I think that the space has a very awkward layout to it, because of this it can get VERY loud when it’s busy. The strange layout is made up for by their absolutely fantastic porch! Right next to the river and it’s BIG porch.
They have a good variety of craft brews, listed by the prices for pints, AND pitchers. I like that you can get pitchers of your favorite craft beer and not wonder what it’s going to run you.
The loaded fries, option 2 (cheese sauce and bacon) is my favorite, and I get it every time. It has gotten smaller (though still a TON of food) and the bacon chunks have been replaced with thin bacons pieces. Waaaaahhhh. The loaded fries option 1 (chicken gravy and cheese curds) was a big miss for me. The gravy didn’t have very good flavor, and it was just kind of soggy and salty and disappointing. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been spoiled by Le Petit Poutine ;-)
I’ve gotten the sausage a few times, and they’re pretty okay. Nothing spectacular, but not terrible either. They’ve added burgers and chicken to the menu. The sausages can be ordered vegan.
Service can be great or terrible. Today, I ate at the bar and the bartender was super pleasant and checked back with me and my compadre regularly. At the worst, I’ve had a waitress chase after me when I was in the parking lot to ask «why didn’t your group tip me!?» — we did tip her — probably more than we should have. Turns out she was looking at a completely different receipt, (a crumpled one we had picked up off of the ground so it didn’t blow into the river) That was pretty awkward, especially since she didn’t seem to believe me. Lesson learned: don’t pick up litter.
I’ll be back as it warms up later in the year, but only for that porch and some IPAs.

we went on Valentines day and had beer and food. The food was a far cry from our 1^st visit. The food was amazing. We ordered hot wings which had an out of this world char grill flavor, Poutine and Nachos. Everything was fresh and delicious. The updated menu is way better than the original menu. Many more choices besides sausage. Cannot wait to go back.

Rochester Taproom is a trendy-​looking, mediocre restaurant in Corn Hill. While the food was good, it wasn’t over-​the-​top delicious or anything special. The best part were the fries, which were very thin, shoestring fries and were pretty darn good.
The beer list is extensive, but the prices are a little outrageous. Happy hour prices ended up being $ 1 – 2 more than most other regular-​priced beers at most other restaurants, and the sizes were smaller.
The best quality about this restaurant is the friendly staff, who offer good suggestions and are knowledgeable about the menu. They also offered a sample of beers on tap, so that you can «try before you buy» — which is helpful since the prices are high.

Great bar drinks, Happy Hour specials 7 days a week, and willing to accommodate large groups !

Good selection of beer and the bartenders are very knowledgeable! Got the medium wings. Very good! Also ordered the #8 burger medium. Goat cheese, roasted tomato, roasted garlic, balsamic reduction. 2 Oatmeal stouts later, I am good to go for a nice winters nap! Recommend this place!

I really do enjoy this place now. Over the past few months I’ve been dozens of times and it’s really grown on me. The beer selection is outstanding and I very much enjoy the vintage sports posters. It hasn’t morphed into a jock sports bar… it’s stayed very much a casual neighborhood hangout with lots of light, friendly bartenders and food that’s actually quite good.
The best appetizer on the menu is the calamari. Not sure how they flash fry it exactly, but it’s really, really good. So crispy and light, I’ve never experienced the Chewy Phenomenon that plagues even the best renditions of this dish here.
The fries are excellent if you like thin French fries, and the bar food is really a cut above the rest. They’ve expanded their menu beyond sausages to included some sandwiches, so now you can actually get a burger here… which is pretty good. I really enjoy the sausage choices because you can get chicken, beef or pork without the bun… so it really becomes more of a salad with some added protein. The Greek version with feta, olives, tomatoes and Greek vinaigrette is wonderful.
Wonderful place to watch international soccer. Quite crowded on the weekends, particularly for Gunners games. Who knew there were so many damn Arsenal fans in Rochester? This is definitely the spot to watch Team USA soccer matches and European Championship football too. Adding another star and proud to say it’s become a regular hangout of mine.

The Rochester Taproom is a great place to go for a drink outside, wings, or to watch sports.
The highlight of the Taproom is their patio — they have plenty of outdoor seating where you can be served, or there is an additional Corn Hill Landing patio area you can take your drinks to (where smoking is allowed). The outdoor area has a nice view of the river and downtown.
The wings are excellent and are gluten free (depending on the sauce you choose), since they are baked and not fried. What a treat!
The bar serves a nice mix of beers on tap, including their own (same people as run the Tap and Mallet). Also has a nice cocktail selection, my favorite is the fresh blackberry margarita.

This is a great place to have a few drinks. Especially if you’re looking for a good spot to have a few outside. Really great view of the bridge and downtown. The best view is definitely at night.
Issue with this place is not the drinks they do a great job and even have the games on the weekends.
This place seems to have an identity issue. Are you trying to be high end trendy market or for regular «Joe the plumber’s» out there?
The menu is kinda set up for the high end restaurant while the at bar are right there in the middle of everything. People watching sports and slamming beers. Sports bar environment with high class menu. Makes zero sense to me.
When you do get your food it’s either under or over cooked and relatively tasteless.
My advice keep it simple and pick a market and demographic and cater to them.

Great burger on a toasted bun with nicely seasoned thin fries (pepper). The spicy vegan sausage was thoroughly enjoyed at our table as well.
Very pleasant service and a calming setting by the river. With «corn hole» outside, I’m sure this place gets much louder on a Friday/​Saturday night.

This is an okay place. Depends on what you are looking for. It is essentially a dressed up sports bar with a good beer selection. Happy hour prices are good. Parking is a pain. Food is not very good — thin burger patty that was well done — far from the medium I asked for.
Go for drinks before dinner, go elsewhere for dinner.

I’m not sure I could be more in love with Rochester Taproom. I recently discovered Corn Hill, and the location is truly a hidden gem in the Rochester area. The Taproom is right on the canal, and is a great place to have a late night bite and a beer (or several) with friends. They are open until 2 AM (kitchen closes at 11) on Saturday, but you can still enjoy the atmosphere all night.
The menu is interesting, being centered around different types of sausage and loaded fries. I would strongly recommend the poutine fries and the nachos with the spicy chicken sausage, but beware. They seem to leave the seeds in the jalapeños, and my friends couldn’t handle the spice. You’ve been warned, so enjoy!
Oh, and the beers on tap rotate quite often, and the pitchers are inexpensive. Cheap beer, above average bar food, and a bunch of outdoor seating on the water? How can you give this place under 5 stars? For shame fellow Unilocalers!

I always cheat on my pescetarian self here because the wings are THAT good. Gotta love those grill marks. My carnivorous friend pointed out that it’s strange how they only come 10 to an order instead of the typical dozen, but if that’s the only criticism then so be it.
A close second to the wings is the spicy vegan sausage with topping #5 (sauerkraut, Russian dressing and Swiss cheese). NOM. Recently tried topping #8 with it (avocado, roasted jalapeño, salsa verde, cheddar jack, cilantro) but there was too much going on. I like all of the ingredients but the flavors were competing with one another.
Other things I like:
+ Vast beer selection on draught and by the bottle
+ Salty shoestring fries with a variety of topping combinations
+ Outdoor seating with a view of the water
+ Friendly and accommodating service
To those of you mourning over Tap and Table, just come with an open mind and empty stomach. Cheers!

Sometimes life calls for a switcheroo. Taproom (formerly Tap & Table) did just that. Farewell to fancy, hello to … sausages! And sports!
I’m into the change. I give props to the team here for acknowledging that they didn’t love what was happening and opted to go down another path. I’d say for the better. Although, I will miss that burger and roasted chicken. They still have cocktails, the bar is full of beer taps rotating on the regular, except now there are about one million TVs surrounding every inch of wall space. If you like sports AND sausage AND beer you’ll probably be a regular here. If you’re like me who really only likes sausages and patios you’ll frequent once or twice month, perhaps? Ok, I like beer too…
The shining star is that patio. It’s ideal for the summer months in Rochester. I wish it could be used year round. Alas, we’ll never escape winter here. I think I might be a sucker for the new vibe here because I usually came post-​work happy hour timeframe or on the weekends in the early afternoon, mostly during spring/​summer/​fall to sit outside and I only want to eat apps. I’m always tempted by pub cheese and loaded fries. I will never stick to a diet, ever.
I sampled a few varieties of sausages so far. I think I prefer it over the mixed greens versus the hoagie. That’s more personal preference for me to avoid eating tons of carbs. The one downside is that both times I had the mixed greens either as a side or as my main dish, the lettuce was overdressed. It took away from the flavors of the toppings and the sausage itself. Specifically with option #8 — it came with salsa verde, which of course added a nice amount of moisture to the mixture, but with the dressing it was too much. For now, I’ll attribute it to their working out the kinks in the kitchen.
I think my favorite sausage so far is the chicken sausage. Vegan options are great too. Spicy pork and vegan pack some heat so perhaps don’t do the spicier topping options even though your brain tells you it’d be good. You will sweat. I sampled the goat cheese, roasted tomato, roasted garlic, balsamic reduction over salad — preferred toppings with the chicken sausage in my book.
Word on the street option #9 is great too (pineapple, sweet and spicy sauce, roasted red pepper). Trying that next!
I am in love with the pretzels (deep fried and so savory!) and the pub cheese is a great item to share. You’ll probably need more bread. I’d love to see some celery paired with it just to offset the carbs.
You’ll also find a few arcade games like Pac Man and pinball! Oh so fun. Go for the sausage, stay for the patio.

Revamping Tap and Table into a sort of «high end» sports bar was an odd move… with mixed results.
The good:
–Excellent cocktails: When I think sports bar, I tend to think the sort of place where the bartenders aren’t trained to make classic cocktails. Not the case here! You can get refreshing, classic drinks like a Pimm’s Cup and a Dark and Stormy. I also tried the Movie Star: a ginger beer and vodka based cocktail with lemon juice and green tea simple syrup. I could see sitting on the patio and having several of these and walking away drunk and happy.
–The patio: You can get full service on the patio. If they aren’t serving on the patio? You can walk around with a drink and enjoy the view.
The…less clear:
–The food: From a quality standpoint, the food here is quite good. It’s fresh, which is important (and frankly, unusual for a sports bar where I tend to expect everything is frozen).
The menu itself? Its based around sausage, which is kind of an odd concept. If you aren’t a fan of sausage, there are not a whole lot of options that are filling, making coming here for anything other than appetizers kind of challenging, especially if you’ve got vegetarians in your group.
That said, according to facebook, they are adding a burger option — so it looks like things might be changing soon. (Not sure where that leaves the vegetarians though, but in fairness I didn’t ask.)
–The beer selection: Not as large as Tap and Mallet, but solid. However, it’s not nearly as diverse, which might be a turn off to some… especially those not into craft beers.
The not as good:
–The layout: While the space looks nice, I noticed a few spots where it was hard to see a TV. Doesn’t make much sense for a sports bar. It’s also pretty narrow in there which makes it difficult to walk around when it is crowded. While this is the case with many bars, since this isn’t the kind of place you go for a sit down dinner… there probably SHOULD be a bit more room to walk around.
That said, they do have a second floor… but as I understand it is for groups only.
If you go, be aware that parking can be a challenge in Corn Hill. If you park across the street, know that they will tow QUICKLY if you are in a tow zone.

This isn’t really my scene. TVs. Backwards baseball hats. Arcade games. Sausages. Out of the 30 taps… there aren’t even many beer stand outs.
Sausages. What a bizarre concept to base a restaurant on. We got the nachos and another sausage sandwich. I actually was very impressed with the nachos– $ 10. The salsa verde was incredible! House made and delicious. I recommend the nachos for real.
As for the sandwich– Goat Cheese, Roasted Tomato, Roasted Garlic, Balsamic
Reduction $ 11… the sausage was on a hoagie roll and I found the sausage itself to be dry. It came with TONS of fries. I asked for a side of ranch with the fries… yep– they charged for it.
Service was infrequent and slow. I don’t think I will ever crave a dry sausage so I won’t be back. If life takes you there though, get the nachos.

I liked the overall space when it was still Tap & Table, and not much has changed as far as looks go. The bar is huge, which is nice for crowds, and the beer list is lengthy, which is what would pull me in in the first place.
We visited for dinner, and without looking at the menu beforehand, I didn’t realize it would be all sausage options. Our beer-​cheese dip to start was excellent.
I liked that folks had an option to go vegan, and also pick if they wanted their creatively dressed sausage on a hoagie roll or chopped on a salad.
I liked the different fixin’s we could get, and I settled on the goat cheese option, going for the salad instead of the roll. Sausage was great, additions were great, but the salad was overdressed. It being a little soggy didn’t deter me from polishing off the plate, but it would have been more enjoyable without the extra.
I would come back, but maybe have to be «that girl» that asks for dressing on the side.

Eh.
Jinxed location.
Too cool for school, bartenders.
Just OK tap selections.
Yawn of a menu. What a lazy attempt to save your failing, too big and bad location (unless you live nearby or going to the arena).
If I am in this plaza again I will go back for the charred pizza next door.

Went to Rochester Taproom on a absolutely beautiful evening in Rochester. We wanted to sit on the river and here was really our best option. The back patio is really great backed right up against the river, it was pretty idyllic. The food menu at first gave us pause, pretty much just fries and sausages with some other assorted bar food, but on a closer look they have a variety of sausage options (pork, chicken, veggie) which was nice to see (especially for my better half who doesn’t like pork sausage). I got a spicy pork sausage with meat sauce, cheese, and onion with fries on the side. The sausage itself was pretty tasty, had a very nice flavor to it. The roll was nice and toasty. Sadly, the meat sauce was a little bit dry, it needed a bit more slop to it or something, I’ve never really experience a «dry» meat sauce, but if they could fix that up a bit it would have been awesome. The fries were straight up amazing, some of the best fries in Rochester in my opinion (the portion was also quite generous). I had asked for a side of cheese sauce which was delicious, not too greasy at all. She got a spicy chicken sausage with cilantro, jalapeños, and guacamole, which was equally tasty and a very solid choice.
The only real downer was the service, it felt like we were a total after thought on the back patio and it took almost 15 minutes for our server to bring our check out, which is just one of those things that particularly irks me. Though it did seem that the other servers were much better, so maybe it was just a draw of the short straw.

Went for lunch because of an article on 15 great Rochester restaurants. Not really sure how this place made the list.
There were six of us and we all ordered a sausage (when in Rome). It took over an hour to get the food. Why? Who knows. There was only about 10 – 15 other people there and the clock is ticking when its a work lunch break.
The items on the menu seemed creative but if your not a big fan of sausage I would not recommend this place; there is not an array of entrée choices. The sausage was not anything out of the ordinary and the side of spring mix was drenched in heavy dressing.
The server and view was nice.

This was formerly the Tap and Table, just recently opened.
The interior hasn’t changed too much but it is a very pleasant atmosphere with fairly simple décor and lighting. The bar extends down most of the length of the dining area and can seat a pretty good number of guests, probably at least 15 without feeling overcrowded. A large selection of craft beers taps line the bar. To the left of the bar is the dining room and there’s an outdoor patio as well overlooking the genesee river.
There are a couple bar games in a little nook near the entrance with a pool table and darts, which is pretty cool. They added tvs to give a sportier bar vibe. I personally don’t like television and I try to avoid bars with tvs but they keep the volume down to preserve the class so that’s nice. Glad Joe switched over the atmosphere and menu to this current one because the Ta and Table menu was ridiculously overpriced and Rochester simply doesn’t have the type of clientele to support such a venue.
So the food. The menu is now much simpler yet effective. There are various appetizers including the Swedish meatballs, which were delicious. The main show are the sausages, of which you can choose chicken or pork and of those you can choose spicy or not. They have a vegetarian sausage too but come on now, that’s like calling a tofu burger a burger. They make the sausages in house. Very cool. You choose the style you want the sausages topped. I got one that had apples, cheese, and I think onions, but I’m not quite sure as it was a couple weeks ago, that just means I have to go back and have some more at some point. Regardless, it was pretty tasty and it came with a hearty plate of thin cut fries, extra points for that.
The beer selection is decent. They had a couple of bells, founders, naked dove, Sierra Nevada, Great Divide, etc. and of course, they unfortunately always have a bunch of 3 Heads Brewing beers on tap. The awesome thing about them is they let you sample prior to buying. The guys there have decent beer knowledge and can give you recommendations if you want.
Overall, a pretty good place to eat, drink, and be merry. The appetizer prices are comparable to other bars but are still a little pricier than I would want to pay, but the sausages are delicious and reasonably priced. Beer prices are about average for craft. The selection is ok, there is stuff for the beer geeks like me, the local homers, and the masses. 3.75 stars.

Whenever I go out of town, I always make sure to find places that will spark my interest. Recently I visited the Rochester Taproom, formerly known as what I believe was ’ Tap and Table.’ I was told they had an awesome beer selection, so I had to check it out. I arrived at 284 Exchange place and right away loved that the bar itself was entirely upstairs overlooking a river. Classy, yet still a bar. I almost thought I was underdressed for the occasion until I walked in to what gave off the vibe as a sports bar with people dressed just like me (i.e tattoos, leather jackets, the whole 9) While the craft beer list wasn’t what I was hoping for (Fear not, there’s about 25 different brews to choose from, I just expected more) they still had beer to spark my interest.
Next we’ll move on to food. Let me tell you that since I’ve been in Rochester I have been dying to go back to Canada because I miss poutine in an unhealthy fashion. So when I saw the loaded fries option with cheese curds and gravy, I knew I had to try it. Fries came out in a timely manner and they were thin cut (a personal favorite) and definitely loaded. Definitely an awesome beer food if you’re just hanging out and watching the game.
Oh, and shout out to the bartenders for being really awesome dudes.
Also, I should mention this restaurant is vegan friendly and Gluten free friendly, so if you’re trying to take a date somewhere and they fall into one of those categories, you know now a great first date place. Yeah, you’re welcome.
Overall, a place I would go back to. I can’t give it five stars because I was disappointed in the beer selection however that’s essentially it.