Dont Wake The Bear

Dancing Bear Pub
1117 Speight Ave
Waco, Texas 76710
254-753-0025
TDB

After hearing about this place on Facebook and from the guys at Wacoboard, I decided it was time to give the place a try. They are a nice little local Waco pub, with a wide variety of beers and food from the place next door- Food For Thought. From the outside it doesn’t look like much; but when you walk in… bam. They place is really nice, clean, nicely decorated. Very calm atmosphere.

I finally hit them up yesterday, but I didn’t really do my research so I ended up there about 20 minutes before they opened up (4:00pm). Well instead of leaving and wasting gas, I just decided to wait it out in my car and catch up with a couple of my cousins. Once they opened I was obviously the first person in, but not by much. By around 4:30, there were already 8 more people. That’s pretty cool.
I sat up at the bar to watch tv and so I could see who all comes in and what they drink. Im generally not a big beer drinker besides Dos Equis Lager and the occasional Killians. When you go to a pub like this, you gotta give it a whirl. I ordered one of their Oktoberfest beers; I believe it was Schlafly Pumpkin Ale. It was light orange color, not very foggy, small head. The aroma hit me with cinnamon and light pumpkin & vanilla; was pretty awesome. The flavor was a lot like pumpkin pie, but much lighter and sweet. While enjoying my beer I ended up talking to a guy about what is going on in the Big 12…. Pretty interesting talk, always gotta appreciate different views and insights… cool guy. Jeff, the bartender seems to really know about beer, which is obviously good. Most of the guys who came in just asked Jeff for a recommendation, and 9 times out of 10 he nailed it. They also let you sample the tap beers first, which is nice. I sampled the beer of the day, but it was too hoppy for me.

I never did order food, for two reasons; 1) I didn’t realize they didn’t start serving food till 5 and 2) they get their food from Food for Thought (which I haven’t eaten at yet). I really wanted pizza, but didn’t want to order a full one for myself or wait till 5. So I talked to a friend of mine, and hopefully we will be hitting the bear this weekend for some more beer and a homemade pizza.

For my first time there, I really enjoyed it and I’m disappointed it took me so long to try this joint out. They have a nice selection of beer, supposedly good food and game night once a week. It’s not far from my house, so I’ll definitely be going more often. So if you are a beer lover, you should really give this place a try and tell'em DavieG sent ya.