It’s a good time to be a west-sider. Following recent news that Henderson pizza favorite Settebello is launching a Summerlin-area location comes word that east-side staple Aces & Ales will open a second spot on Tenaya just south of Cheyenne. With Tenaya Creek Brewery a few doors down, the smart money has that strip of road becoming a beer mecca in the very near future.

Beloved among local aficionados for having the Valley’s most eclectic tap rotation, Aces has been nondescriptly nestled on Nellis a bit north of Sam’s Town since 2009. Memorable recent pours have included Ballast Point’s Bourbon Barrel-Aged Black Marlin, Moylan’s Hop Craic XXXXIPA and Brouwerij De Molen’s Hel & Verdomenis—all available in a single sitting.

Understandably, that sort of draft selection overshadows an outstanding menu heavy on comfort foods. Your mother always warned you never to drink on an empty stomach, so start with the beer bites ($6), baked dough bites brushed with olive oil and herbs and flanked with house-made nacho cheese, beer cheese and marinara. If not bread, try cheese; Aces’ cheese curds ($8.50) aren’t made in-house, but they’re equally addictive.

What to eat once your beer has been served? I have four words for you: mac and cheese menu. The house version ($9) is memorable in its own right—strewn with garlic and finished with a Parmesan breadcrumb crust—but that’s just the beginning. Aces offers seven other varieties, including buffalo chicken (mozzarella, blue cheese, chicken and wing sauce) and shrimp (mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan and shrimp). And if that’s not enough cheese for you, Aces also serves seven—yes, seven—grilled cheeses. Options range from the Shocker ($9), which sublimely combines provolone, bacon, jalapeños and roasted red peppers, to the Frenchie ($9), essentially bacon cheese fries on bread.

On the less decadent side, Aces offers sandwiches, comically huge salads and from-scratch pizzas that are thinnish and feature a garlicky sauce. And then there’s the Eddie Spaghetti, a deep-dish pizza with meat sauce … and Italian sausage … and spaghetti. Yeah.

Aces & Ales isn’t for everyone. The menu is about the size of your table, and the joint itself can be dark and fairly smoky. Lucky for us west-siders, the new location will have outdoor dining.