Date Night is fortunate in that our work location is two miles from so many restaurant choices. We can hit Midtown, Inman Park or the Westside, which gives us many options when it’s time for our night together. Tonight we have plans to hit a spot in Midtown, but a bad accident on Spring Street turns us to an eatery that not only makes their own beer, but cooks some really good food. It sounds like our kind of place.

5 Seasons is right next to our favorite beer store, Hop City. It used to be part of an old warehouse on the railroad line behind it.

There is a centrally located bar that dispenses their house-brewed beer. We love it when we are greeted with a sign like this:

That’s twelve different beers on the big board. It’s a tough choice to make, but it’s another cold night in the ATL and we go dark.

The imperial stout is the better beer of the two. It’s got a lot of alcohol in it and does not overpower with any heavy coffee tastes like some imperials do. The porter is interesting as it is served in a cask at room temperature. It tastes a lot like Guinness, with that creamy Irish stout consistency. 5 Seasons does not post the alcohol content of their beer (they should!), so we can’t say how potent either beer is.

We are getting hungry, and we love pretzels, and look what we order…

How’s this for presentation? The “5” is a buckwheat pretzel with a cheese dip that’s full of mustard. The buckwheat gives it a much heavier, wheatier taste than normal pretzels, and this is a great start to our meal. We give it “five” stars for creativity.

There are a lot of choices for our main course, almost too many to choose from.

This is just the daily specials menu that our waiter Steven tells us changes twice a day. The regular menu is filled with small plates, salads and entrees. What to pick? Fortunately, we take our time with the pretzel and the beer until we can come up with a strategy. We decide to go with something smaller.

These reminded us of a gyro with much higher quality ingredients. We didn’t eat the red peppers, but they look good in the picture.

For our next small plate we choose the crispy fried alligator. Date Night doesn’t eat a lot of gator, but when Steven describes the gator as being trucked in from Louisiana by the farmer, we have to give it a try. As advertised, the outside is crispy and the inside is hot and juicy. It’s covered with a chili sauce and underneath it is a spicy slaw.

Do we have room for dessert? Because we went with the small plates, we think we can squeeze in something from the dessert menu. I don’t know what it is about bread pudding, but when you get a chocolate-banana version, you just have to have it.

The dessert is as good as it sounds. The chocolate and banana tastes abound and the sweet sauce that surrounds it is good for dragging your forkful through as it leaves the plate. This didn’t last long as we really enjoyed it.

Believe it or not, we didn’t visit Hop City after dinner, probably because our beer cellar at home is pretty full. As we walk to the car, we wonder why we don’t go here more often as it’s so good. Fortunately for all of us, there are 5 Seasons in Sandy Springs and Alpharetta, so there should be one near you to visit more often.