The Federal

My go-to in Durham- cool vibe, decent servers, awesome beer on tap that is always rotating in season like it should.  Their Fed-Burger is the best I've ever had, and their grilled cheese with avocado is fantastic.

It's a tough call on how to rate this place, especially since I think my sole reason for disappointment was reading all the yelp reviews giving this place glowing marks really set me up for high expectations that just weren't met.  

First: when I went, the beer selection was unimpressive and pretty standard. That's not to say there's a bad selection, but it seems more suited for a craft beer novice or people who finally find a place in town where their somewhat obscure increasingly popular beer is.  I think I was expecting a bigger and more diverse selection since everyone raved about it, but unless there were other brews that were not listed somewhere, the Fed didn't live up to the hype for me.

The food was just OK. I had a grilled cheese, friend had a burger. Pretty standard for pub grub, and while not necessarily bad, it basically served as filler. There wasn't nearly enough cheese to accommodate such big slices of bread, that the sandwich was a little overly dry. The burger seemed good enough. The big complaint was the fries-- it seemed like they relied too much on garlic salt than actual garlic to make these this night. Just gave them an overly-salted slightly artificial taste. I still ate mine, so they weren't inedible. Just a preference.

I will likely try again at some point, but will give other places a shot first

Good local beer selection. Decent food. Okay place to hang for a bit.