HopMonk Tavern Sonoma
Gordon Biersch poured Marzen, Dunkles and Hefeweizen for twelve years before Dean Biersch and Dan Gordon sold the restaurants in 2000. Biersch builds taverns around beer gardens now, and the Sonoma one is an 1888 farmhouse two blocks off the plaza.21
Why go
Biersch opened the Gordon Biersch flagship in Palo Alto in July 1988 with brewer Dan Gordon, and the two built ten brewery-restaurants from it.2 They added a production brewery in 1995 and sold the restaurant half in 2000 over regulatory trouble.2 The first HopMonk opened in Sebastopol in 2008, and the group now runs three taverns and two live-music rooms.2
I could not find a menu. The operator's own Sonoma menu page returns a 404, and nothing else I read names a dish or a beer poured here, so I have nothing to tell you to order.
Good to know
- Open seven days. 11:30am to 9pm Monday to Thursday, 11am to 10pm Friday and Saturday, 11am to 9pm Sunday.1
- Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and it shuts at 4pm on Christmas Eve.1
- The beer garden runs year-round and there is a listening room on site.1
- Three taverns carry this name. The saved pin is 691 Broadway in Sonoma, and this entry is that door.2
Verdict
listed — I have no dish to point you at here. Nobody has published a review of this kitchen that I could find, and HopMonk's own Sonoma menu page has been broken long enough that I could not read it either. What is on record is the room: a beer garden that runs year-round, a listening room behind it, and doors open seven days from 11:30 to nine, later on Friday and Saturday. Worth a walk past if you are on Broadway. Not worth a drive until somebody eats there and writes it down.