Cannery Row Brewing Company

Our verdict

Seventy-plus taps lined the bar at Cannery Row Brewing Company, a figure that once placed it among California's larger draft selections and gave the Monterey brewpub a credibility that outlasted most of its contemporaries on the Row. The building at 95 Prescott Ave had spent decades as a working cannery before its 2010 conversion, and the bones showed: exposed brick, penny flooring, and steampunk-inflected fixtures that read as industrial archaeology rather than themed decoration. The kitchen leaned into polished bar food with conviction. The Parmesan pretzel with beer cheese dip and the short rib grilled cheese were the dishes most frequently cited in coverage, and both reflected a kitchen that understood its audience without condescending to it. Hawaiian huli huli chicken and butter-ground burgers rounded out a menu that sat comfortably between pub staple and Central Coast comfort food. Founding chef Mark Ayers established the culinary direction; executive chef Daniel Furey and local chefs Michelle Lee and Justin Robarge carried it forward across the venue's nine-year run. The broader recognition came from television rather than fine-dining circuits. A feature on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives brought national visibility, and local food media credited the venue with shifting expectations for what a brewpub could deliver on the Central Coast. Pricing held at a moderate register throughout, making the tap list and kitchen output accessible to a range of visitors to what is one of Monterey's most heavily trafficked visitor districts. Cannery Row Brewing Company closed in November 2019. What it left behind was a nine-year demonstration that a serious draft program and a focused bar-food kitchen could coexist without either compromising the other, in a city where the dining conversation had long been dominated by seafood houses and tourist-facing casual chains.