The owner of Urbana bar and restaurant Crane Alley announced that the business will close later this month.
The last day of service will be June 18, the company announced Sunday afternoon via a post on its Facebook page. Owner Scott Glassman posted the news in various local groups. The notice was also posted on Crane Alley’s website.
Crane Alley opened in downtown Urbana 19 years ago, occupying two floors of its Main Street building. Although primarily a bar, the spot boasted of high-quality gastropub fare with a very family-friendly menu. Its outdoor patio located in its namesake, Crane Alley, was a favorite in good weather.
The restaurant was very beloved for its popular weekly burger specials, which featured various themes – heat wave, pizza, and fiesta burgers were a few of the most recent options. (And it was a cornerstone of the chambanamoms.com burger trail.)
The bar was also beloved for its diverse beer selection, famously offering benefits to members of its “beer tour” club. To complete the tour, one had to try 100 different beers. There’s no word yet what will happen to the engraved name plates on the Beer Tour Wall of Fame.
It was no secret that Crane Alley was highly impacted by business interruptions caused by the COVID pandemic and its reverberations. The restaurant temporarily closed from mid-December 2020, reopening for business in June 2021 much to the relief of its loyal patrons (Editor’s note: that included our family, too).
Pre-pandemic, the bar and grill was popular for lunch or dinner; in the past year Crane Alley was typically only open for dinner, Wednesday through Sunday.
For more on local Champaign-Urbana restaurants that have opened and closed in recent months, visit our “open and closed” roundup from April.