The Crafty Pig

Ate here just before Christmas with a friend for a quick dinner. The service was great, really friendly, chatty and happy to make recommendations. We both enjoyed our food which was delivered promptly and it was good value, too. I’d return to try out something different from the menu. We had to leave promptly as some terrible live acoustic music started up without warning.

We keep coming in with friends, and I keep finding myself disappointed with the food. Tonight’s burger was served barely warm, cheese unmelted, bloody in the middle. Fries tasted like the fryer needs to be cleaned. Not impressed :(

Nice atmosphere, especially for watching a game. They have nice staff and an interesting bourbon milk shake menu!

A wee date night out with the boyfriend and an itison deal makes for an added star to my updated review for The Crafty Pig!
A while back, I stumbled upon an Itison deal for two main meals at The Crafty Pig for £9, so because we were in the area to attend a gig at the Kelvingrove Bandstand, we decided that it was a perfect time to use the voucher. To be honest, I’ve been dreaming about the food ever since.
We were seated immediately, even before I remembered I actually booked a table in and handed menus by a very friendly hostess. Once we looked over the menu, it was decided we were each going to order something we wanted to try and share with each other. The boyfriend ordered the Rib Bun burger which was an amazing stack of shredded pork rib meat, crispy onions and BBQ sauce with two black pudding croquettes on top. I think it was pretty tough splitting this burger with me after seeing it, but my boyfriend managed. I ordered the ever amazing Fancy Crafty Dog which was ham hock smoked beans, chipotle cheese, onions and ranch dressing on top of a hot dog. To be honest, it was a little hard sharing this with the boyfriend, but I managed to as well.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that both of our choices were top notch and so tasty. The boyfriends burger was a bit on the sweet side with the BBQ sauce while mine was more on the smoky side with the chipotle cheese and smoked beans. Both very delicious in their own rights and both items we will for sure order again. On top of the delicious burger and dog, they both came with skinny fries which were perfectly cooked, soft in the middle, crisp on the outside. Perfect!
We were told that the menu we were looking at was a brand new menu and to give any feed back. While the meals were pretty much perfect and meals of our dreams, the boyfriend had one comment in that the black pudding didn’t seem to be of the best quality. That didn’t stop him from eating them, but he wasn’t its biggest fan. Other than that, the meal and atmosphere was great. Staff was great, the whole experience as a whole was great.
The Crafty Pig seems to be doing something right and I hope they’re around for many moons to come. I’m a lover of BBQ and this place holds a special place in my heart. We will be back for sure!

I have been here twice recently for drinks and food and would definietly recommend it. Great selection of beers on tap, nice atmosphere in the bar and they have seating outside. I was there after a football match and the place has obviously been rammed, the staff were still great at getting us food and drinks as soon as they could.
For food, I only really looked at the burgers but there are other options there. I must say, for £5 I wasn’t expecting much but was amazed at the quality and tastiness of their standard crafty pig burger they do. Amazing value for money considering the prices you can pay elsewhere! So big up to the guys in the kitchen doing a good job. I will definitely be back! Thank you!

Cool atmosphere and décor; good service.
I had a couple pints of St. Mungo –tasty and refreshing. Then I split the Mac Dog, pickles and onion rings with my sister. I will be back for another Mac Dog! –and next time, I’m not sharing!

Back for wings Wednesday again to give it another shot and try different wings. This time the service and food was much better. The girl serving us was chirpy and friendly and attentive. I got the wee but hot wings this time which are exactly as it says, not too hot and tasty. Husband got the dry rub which was lovely and made the wings a bit more crispy which I like. Our friend got the same as last time, the BBQ sticky glaze and he liked them again. This time we got bigger sides for some reason and a finger bowl as you do get in a mess, we didn’t get this the last time. We opted for the sharing nachos to share as a starter again and this time we got more and a lot more of the salsa, guacamole and sour cream. We did ask for Chilli nachos but didn’t get any Chilli although this wasn’t a major issue as it would have been too much we forgot to make sure we didn’t get charged the extra :(. All in all a better experience than the last time and I don’t think any of us have finished our wings, maybe don’t get a started and you can demolish them all. Still not my favorite wings so 3 stars it is.

My first problem is that the Crafty Pig calls itself a «brewpub» on the outside. As there is zero brewing equipment in the place this is a misleading statement. You wouldn’t accept going to a pizzeria which says it makes its pizza in a stone oven, to find that it is microwaved.
Aside from that, there’s an OK selection of craft beers, but nothing you’ll find here will blow you away. There are some good deals on the food and it was good quality for the price. Think shoestring fries, BBQ, pizzas and burgers.
It’s a decent choice but I wouldn’t come to this area of town just for the Crafty Pig.

Was craving ribs for the longest time, and this place really did the trick. The atmosphere was great and there’s a certain aesthetic to it. When I went it was pretty slow so the service was good accordingly. It took me way longer to look at the beer menu than the food menu, which is either good or bad depending on what you’re looking for.

Even having been to Little Urban Achievers Club a few times, I clearly did not strike up the same affinity with the place as other Unilocalers. Or, I fail to see the striking difference now this place has re-​branded. To my knowledge, it’s still the same management.
The principal sell for me now really is that they have a pool table. Yes, I am a simple man of simple pleasures. It’s worth mentioning though that there is a distinct lack of pool tables in this part of the West End. It’s also modestly priced, all things considered.
They do beer, and lots of it. They also do a decent promos during the week including (good) rum and coke for two fitty.
A decent place in a good location which seems to be quite busy, so they are doing something right. My suspicion is they have upped their game in the food department, but I have yet to sample the grub.
Will no doubt be back.

I’m not going to mention anything about burgers. I care not a jot for burgers — ooft even thinking about them is giving me the heebies, so I’ll focus on other stuff.
I was with a fairly sizeable group of people on a Friday night and we popped in here for a drink. It seemed that the unders night at Viper upstairs were undergoing a fire evacuation, so battling our way through the underdressed teens was an amusing start.
Once inside, I liked the cosy, welcoming interior. The bar staff were friendly, and we were all served very efficiently.
They have an impressive range of craft beers. I could quite happily while away hours in here working my way through the beers.
To start with, I had a draft — Nollaig winter spruce beer. It was 7% and, not wishing to have to crawl my way home, I had a half pint. It was really delicious. I particularly liked the spruciness — very fresh. I then had a bottled beer — Schofferhoffer. Ooh it’s a proper wheat beer, with that beautiful banana taste, I really enjoyed that one too.
I noticed there was a pool table in the back, and the toilets were allright too.
I’d like to come back another time to play pool and drink more beer.

2.5 really.
£5 for 2 not very nice jalapeño poppers is not cool. Especially when, an admittedly small, burger and chips is a fiver too. Pizza is ok but the toppings are very sparse. Nice selection of beers though.

This place was heaving and the staff were rushing off their feet which meant on entering it was pretty confusing as to what the format of this venue actually is (table service? Food? Menus? Bar?)
Once I’d bought myself a beer from the bar, 30 minutes later it transpired that it was indeed table service and if I wanted a menu I had to ask for one — okay!
Food was okay once this confusion was over and we had let the staff know we existed (nothing to write home about) — but a good beer selection and fills a gap in the «American style sports bars with BBQ» category.
I’ll visit again when it’s less busy and it’ll get four stars if they get a member of staff manning the door an keeping an eye out for people who have fallen through the cracks!

When I heard there was a place in Glasgow serving burgers inside doughnuts, I knew I had to check it out. That place is The Crafty Pig. It is located on Great Western Road just a few doors away from the newly opened BRGR. With so many smokehouses and burger joints popping up, it’s getting harder and harder for them to stand out from the crowd — so why not replace the bun with a doughnut?!
On arrival, I loved the décor and the whole feel of the place, and there was a ridiculously well-​stocked fridge behind the bar full of every craft beer you can think of. We took a seat, unsure of whether this was a table-​service or order at the bar scenario.
Eventually Sam went to grab a menu and we were told it was table service. Unfortunately, as we were both fresh off a night of cocktails at Metropolitan, neither of us felt we could stomach the infamous Doughnut Burger. In the end, I went for the Rib Roll — pulled rib meat with crispy onions and ‘stick fingers BBQ sauce.’ I’ve never seen rib meat in a roll like that so I was keen to give it a try.
We planned on ordering a side of Bacon Popcorn because, really, who wouldn’t? Turns out there was none — they made the popcorn but forgot to put in the bacon flavouring. Damn. We opted for some Spiced Scratchings instead.
The scratchings arrived with our drinks in a cute little blue cup. They were really crunchy, perfect pork scratchings but they didn’t taste very ‘spiced’ as the menu suggested. Every now and then one of us would get a hint of paprika or pepper, but mostly they just tasted like normal pork, which was fine, but not what the menu claimed.
The Rib Roll looked great inside, the meat was covered in the glossy BBQ sauce which smelled fantastic, the onions looked crisp to the point of being almost burnt, which I personally love, my only confusion was garnish. It looked like coleslaw but without the mayo/​dressing, it was just shredded carrot, white cabbage and red onion, dry and raw. I didn’t get it at all and would have happily gone without.
The meat itself was so tender and full of that smokey, BBQ flavour. It fell apart and I loved how totally unique it was — I could eat ribs without getting in a big mess and gnawing on bones. I think Sam was a little disappointed he hadn’t gone for something more exciting as he just went for a plain cheese and bacon burger but the burger itself was quite small and thin, and the cheese was the slices of plastic cheese you buy for your kids at a BBQ, which I found really surprising. It made me more grateful of my Rib Roll!
My experience of The Crafty Pig was a good one apart from the random, dry coleslaw on my roll, but I can forgive that because of how tasty the BBQ sauce and rib meat was. Sam’s experience left him feeling slightly disappointed, although the bacon on his burger was very tasty. In terms of value for money, this is a great place to grab a quick bite. With burgers starting at £5.75, its super cheap and will leave you with a full stomach.
It’s the perfect stop off for students and is in the best location for it, being just a short walk from the University. If I still lived nearby, it’s definitely a place I would revisit for a cheap, hassle-​free meal.

Do you love your burgher durty? Do you love when the juice from your burger is dripping down you hands and on to your forearm? Of both of the above then hit Crafty Pig!
The new rebrand of LUAC is outstanding! There was lots of social network chat about Crafty and the new menu so we thought let’s give it a bash! It was a Wednesday night so to be able to drink and eat with our not so small dog was the best!
The burger I went for had grilled cheese bacon and BBQ sauce OMG! This burger instantly enters my top 5! Messy and juicy you could not get any more flavor into this if you tried!
The staff were super friendly, came over offered Rogue some water! The beer list is epic too! This place is A MUST!

Donuts… donuts… DONUTS!!!
Crafty Pig has been chatting on FB about how dog friendly they are, even creating a doggy visitor album. So we decided to test it out last night.
I used to like LUAC, but Crafty Pig actually looks like an improvement from the décor. It has a warm feel about it and I prefer the current incarnation to the previous less atmospheric LUAC.
Is it dog friendly? Yes, very — All staff were super keen to meet Rogue, he was given a water bowl before I was given a beer and it was made very clear to us that dugs are very welcome.
I know this won’t matter to a lot of people who don’t have dogs and may even put some off, but for us it is AMAZING. If you have been at work all day and don’t want to leave your pooch in at night, but want to go out for a meal or a few beers. Crafty Pig lets you do that and go somewhere that sells good food and great beers. The only potential obstacle I could see is if it was very busy and tables were packed it might be trickier to keep your mutt away from the other tables/​diners as some are pretty close together, but during the week it should be no issue at all. We were lucky we got a table with tons of room for Rogue to lie in.
On to the drinks. The beer menu is great. Over 20 bottled beers and a good few that I had not tried before. To give you an idea on the options they had, Brooklyn, Flying Dog, Sierra Nevada, Anchor and many more. Not just one standard type of each, but usually a couple of options. I went with the Day of the Dead Blonde Ale. To be honest it was far to light for my tastes, but that is more about my choices/​decision as I was keen to try something new. I can’t blame anybody but myself for the beer I ended up with. They also had ten plus draft options, I can’t tell you what as I was to focused on the bottles, but it would be safe to say they have most based covered in terms of options for people chasing unusual beers.
On to the food side. Having read Gordon’s review and finding out about the new Donut burger, I HAD to try it! Donuts and burgers wrapped together, it’s like some sort of last meal request.
Anyways, it sounds good, it tastes good, but it was not perfect. The bacon was a bit overdone and the donut was not fit for purpose in terms of holding the mass amount of food that was between the two halves. It just crumbled to pieces. Still again this is more about my choice than the food on offer in terms of the bun. Trudie had the smoke stack that I tried and it tasted amazing and held together much much better. TBH I wish I had gone for that option, but I got sold on the novelty idea of saying I had tried the donut burger. Next time I will know better .The burgers themselves were good and piled high. Very tasty and went well with the layers of cheese. The fries were great, but a bit salty. I love French fries over thick chips so once I fired some mustard on them I was good to go.
The score… I’m going to be slightly biased here as I love this place because it allows me to take Rogue. The food was probably a four, but I think if I picked better it would be a five no problem. The beers on offer were a five definitely. The staff were so friendly and the place looks very cool inside.
I would not be able to argue with anybody rating it 4, but the dog welcome element for me gives it five shiny stars.
Happiness is a dug friendly pub/​restaurant.

I was gutted to see LUAC (Little Urban Achievers Club) go. I hadn’t even got round to reviewing my Unilocal brunch club experience and it was gone. Brunch was delicious by the way. Well, if you really want to know I had French toast, bananas and maple syrup. Yum!
Anyway, way off topic here. Aye, so The Crafty Pig. Hmmm??? Well it has a new menu and an interesting sounding one at that. We were initially only popping in for drinks but the smell of food grabbed us by the ghoolies, well if I had any that’s were it would be grabbed.
I had a cheeky wee Frulli Strawberry Beer to whet my whistle and opted to have the Macdog for my main. We also inquired to the bacon popcorn which they didn’t have in. I thought it was going to be something awesome but it’s just bacon flavouring on popcorn. The girl explained that the top list of sides were actually all bar snacks. I was a little disappointed.
My Macdog arrived and I have to say that ‘d’ word again. Yup, I was disappointed. It was bun heavy, very dry with a funny tasting dog and the driest macaroni pasta (no sauce) topped with three triangles of plastic cheese. Now, I loooooove cheese but I cannot stand plastic cheese. Don’t get me wrong, presentation looked good and I’m thankful for the chip portion but I really didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. I was super tempted to get the doughnut burger, which I may have to share by looking at Gordon M’s photos.
I’m not giving up on the place. I like it, to be honest not much has changed since the now past gone LUAC days. They did a cracking redecoration job so there isn’t really anything that needs updated yet. So thankful for the ladies toilets being refurbished. I hated them in the Hubbards/​The Wise Monkey days.
It’s definitely worth swinging by for, they have plenty of activities going on including their games room featuring a pool table. Keep an eye to their facebook page as their website seems to be currently down.
So, whose up for the doughnut burger?

Om nom nom!
Bye bye LUAC, hello Crafty Pig, a new interior and a new menu.
Whilst not massively different inside there are a few small touches that makes it seem cosier than it used to.
We grab a table for two (don’t wait to be seated) and ordered a couple of drinks. Craft beer and real ale lovers will be pleased by the extended choice, a Birds and Bees for me, a glass of red (cab sauv) for Clare.
The menu is burger, hot dog, pizza heavy with some interesting sides. Unfortunately the bacon popcorn wasn’t on, so a side portion of spicy rubbed wings made do. They had a nice little kick that’s for sure.
I plumped (pun intended) for the Donut burger. Two thick, juicy patties, two slices of cheese, delicious smoked bacon and a Cola BBQ sauce all sandwich between two halves of a sugared doughnut (donut, whatever!!). Ohh there is lettuce, onion and tomato in there too.
Taste wise, DEEEELICIOUS! The beef was spot on with a nice hint of pink, and the sweetness of the sugared doughnut added a nice sweetness to counter the smoky bacon. However, the BBQ sauce rarely made any appearance and the bottom half of the donut (Ohh shut up) reduced to almost nothing but a sodden mush.
Clare had the MacDog, a grilled hotdog with Mac cheese and more slices of cheese on top. CHEESE! It certainly seemed to vanish quickly, although even visually it looked a little «bun» heavy, and the extra cheese looked pretty cheap and processed.
I managed room for dessert and had already spotted the brownie (warmed) and tablet ice cream. Yum! That didn’t last long at all, the the brownie was perfect, the ice cream subtle.
Service was good, friendly and efficient and they took my criticism of the burger «base» as useful feedback which is a good sign.
Price wise it was pretty good too, all that for under £20 a head.
I’d happily go back, the menu has some good options and it’s handily near where I live. With a little more attention to the ingredients this would be 5 out of 5!