The Armsby Abbey and the Corner Grille

Two of Worcester's most pleasant surprises if you are looking for a night out on the town is The Armsby Abbey located on 144 Main Street and The Corner Grille located on 806 Pleasant Street. Both places are excellent for their own unique reasons.

I got to know about The Armsby Abbey through many of my friends through the artists groups in Worcester. Some of them work at the Abbey and do a great job preparing the food and desserts. All of which are made from scratch. And for someone like myself who loves micro brews, it has an amazing selection of locally brewed beers as well as beer they brew right inside the abbey.

It reminds me a great deal of the Amherst Brew Pub out in Amherst MA. Only the food at the Abbey is a bit more upscale. If you're looking for a cheap meal or a cheap beer this is not the place. And that's really a good thing. It keeps the the surlier crowd who are usually there to get blindingly drunk and get into a fight down the street at the Irish Times.

I've been to the Abbey a couple times and every time I've gone there both the meal and the beer I had was excellent. And it's on a part of Main Street that is easy to get to navigate down past the courthouse and going towards Highland Street. And parking is not a difficulty once it gets to that time of the night where you don't have to put money into the meters.

My only warning is to get there as early as possible if you want to get a table. It fills up really quickly once the dinner crowd arrives.

But it is so worth the visit and I highly recommend if you're looking for a night on the town with your lady or gentleman.

Our next stop is The Corner Grille. Worcester's best kept secret located on Pleasant Street. The place has been around since 1998 and I never knew it. But I'm glad I do now.

I've never had flat bread pizza before I went to the Grille. And now it's up there as one of my favorites.

I first found out about it during a work session with some of my friends with the Undercoverfish Group. Andy Fish was going to order pizza from there for lunch. I'm not a notorious lunch eater so I was going to pass which Andy replied "You'll be sorry". But my curiosity got the best of me (and I hate the idea of being sorry) so I ordered myself The Mad Russian Pie. Which had a creamy tomato-vodka sauce, chicken, artichoke hearts, baby spinach and cheese.

It was fantastic!! And I have made quite a few return visits to the Grille since. The other pizza I ordered was the Cave Man which has about any sort of meat you could possibly throw on a flat bread pizza.

I actually made a friend give up being a vegetarian because of that pizza. True story.

Much like the Armsby Abbey, The Corner Grille is a small place and fills up fast. So, you should probably get down there before the big crowd gets there. And so you can get an outside table. During the Summer that's probably the best place you can sit and have dinner while at the Grille.

It's BYOB. But there's a packie right across the street so you can pick up whatever drinks you would like to enjoy with the meal.

There are other great stops around the Woo, but as far as I'm concerned The Armsby Abbey and the Corner Grille are two of the best if you're looking for a nice night out.