Grand Rapids Needs a Restaurant Like This

About a month ago, I wrote about how Grand Rapids needs a new unique restaurant. I think I have stumbled across a great idea!

While traveling last week, I happened to look on my favorite website for unique travel sites -- Roadside America. Whenever I hit the road, I always check to see if there are any cool places to stop along the way.

While in Pennsylvania, the Roadside America website mentioned there was a place you could eat in "Dinner in a Beer Dungeon" in Mt. Joy. The place is called Bube's Brewery (pronounced "Boobies" -- go ahead and chuckle -- I did when I called for information and they answered the phone!)

The building has quite the history. It is an intact historic 19th century brewery. It was a  German immigrant named Alois Bube who the place is named after. He was a brewing apprentice in his homeland and in 1876 bought the small brewery in Mount Joy Pennsylvania.

The official website for Bube's Brewery says: "Bube’s Brewery is the only of the hundreds of 'lager era' breweries that still stands in almost completely intact condition in the United States today. Restoration of the complex began in 1968 and continues currently."

The coolest part about this place is the Catacombs Restaurant. You actually get to have dinner several stories below ground in the aging cellars of Bube’s Brewery. A host gives you a short tour of the historic brewery on your way down to dinner. You descend 43-feet into the stone-lined vaults of the catacombs.

This was such a cool and unique experience. I got to thinking...with all the gypsum mines that are located underneath Grand Rapids -- why could we do something like this here?

I know a lot of the former mines are still in use. Some are even being used for cold storage of beer! There is still access to a lot of these mines. Why couldn't a local restaurant open up in one of the mines?! We need a good unique restaurant here in the area -- and this would definitely be unique!!