Hen House

Hen House Eatery opened last month in the old Peter’s Grill location in downtown Minneapolis. They have done some work to the space including new paint, some new light fixtures and a new bar. They retained some of the more charming features of the previous tenant such as part of the counter seating and the wooden booths.

I had the egg, bacon, avocado, cream cheese and tomatoes sandwich with Hen potatoes on my first visit. The sandwich was barely warm when it arrived unfortunately. I did not care for the type of bread used with this sandwich, it was a multi grain bread and after it was toasted it did not have much flavor. The bacon was of good quality, but it was a bit undercooked and not at all crisp. The cream cheese was melted into the bread and it did not seem to add much flavor. I was excited to try the Hen potatoes are they are cubed sweet potatoes with rosemary. However, the sweet potatoes were very undercooked and crunchy throughout even thought they were cut into very small pieces. They have potential if they were cooked through.

One of my lunch companions had the kitchen sink omelet, which contained Italian sausage, bacon, ham, sausage, cheddar cheese, green onions, tomatoes, peppers and hash browns . He thought it was overpriced at $12.99. While the omelet was very large, I have to agree. That is rather steep for a bunch of eggs.

On my second visit I had the turkey panini with garlic artichoke mayo, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese and a side of fries. The fries were your standard frozen French fries and nothing special, but they arrived hot and tasted freshly made. The panini was pretty good, with lots of cheese and turkey, but I did not detect any garlic, artichoke or mayo. And at $9.99 for the sandwich plus $2.00 extra for fries the sandwich become pretty expensive quickly.

Even after both visits I’m still on the fence about Hen House. Both times I sat at the bar and the server seemed very rushed, probably because she was covering the whole bar and counter area. So service was acceptable, but not exactly friendly. Both times, the food was a bit underwhelming. Nothing was amazing enough to make me want to come back soon. So, I’m still undecided. I am hoping they improve as they are open longer and maybe make some refinements to the menu and the food. For now, it just seems like overpriced average-quality breakfast food and sandwiches, that are not worth the trip downtown.

Deals and Discounts: Happy hour is Monday through Friday from 2-7pm. I am not sure what the discounts are though. No details on the website that I could find, but a City Pages write up mentioned all drinks are $1 off.


Hen House
114 S 8th St
Minneapolis, MN 55402
612-345-4664
http://henhouseeatery.com