Co-Op Grill

I have been to this place a few times when it was the old Desert Rose, but that place was a legit shithole. This place however, is actually pretty awesome and the beer is ice cold, the food is excellent (and huge portions), great prices and honestly this place is a gem! The only reason I won’t give it a better rating is, it is far as fuck from my house. The bathrooms, although clean smell like rotten ass (pipe smell) and it is far as fuck from my house.

This is my old neighborhood (as in 100sq miles) bar .The old watering hole. I think they probably do really well for events, the roping arena in back is put to good use and that is probably a great time to enjoy this slice of old Arizona trying to make it into the new era. I think with blue highway travelers it should still be a good business to build. Weekday lunch and weekends until the evening seem to be the busy times. The menu is good and basic Arizona steakhouse, full bar, friendly workers. The old Desert Rose was a fixture dive bar; I hope that they can tap into some of that.
edit: I’ve eaten here a couple of times recently. The cook is doing a good job.

After reading the reviews I thought I would give it a try .
Sorry I did stopped by for lunch got a small cheese burger and fries Bar maid acted like she was to busy to help me.
there were only two people in the place.
the burger looked OK but tasted like the cheese was old tasted real funky. I tell you I don’t feel to good after eating there.
told the bar maid she said ok still paid full price she did not offer to fix it.
wont try that again.
this is not the first time we stopped by about two weeks ago me and a couple buddy on a bike ride stopped in played a couple games of pool had a few beers it was OK but we did not eat went on down to Gila Bend now I am glade we did.

Two years in a row I’ve gone on for a poker run. Were we start there to sign up and have a few drinks and food. The food is always good and the servers are always really nice.

This place looks like an amazing joint and I want to go back and try it again because the atmosphere is amazing but the service was horrible. We waited about an hour for a waitress and they were not crazy busy. Then when we got our food we were not checked up on for drinks or anything. We had to keep going to the bar to get drinks. When it came to paying we had to ask for our checks and wait another hour to pay. The food was okay but it would have been nice to have good service.

Good steak sandwich, great fries, nice nice waitress… Nice place for a ride stop! If your going to Gillespie Dam, stop here, good place for a bite to eat & a beer

The food and service was good. Thry have kids options for $ 6, which is average price. My husband and I had steak. They were cooked perfect. Our meals came with salad bar. I would have given 5 stars on this review, but the salad bar only had lettuce, dressing and croutons. That to me is not a «salad bar». It could at least include cheese. Come on!

Ate lunch here with my lil’ family. As we walked inside we walked thru bar area first & than the dining area, has wooden benches & wooden tables. You can feel this place has history. Very clean establishment, the food was excellent. The generosity of the server’s made this place welcoming. Defintely will be back for some more great food.

Love this place! Great food and atmosphere. Come out! A family owned function that deserves the support.

Okay so the hours of this place change, SO CALL BEFORE YOU GO!
The burgers are good. Garlic fries NO! Garlic fries should not have raw garlic! However definitely worth going to for the burgers.
It has a nice country town atmosphere. A juke box love it!
Room to dance, they make fun allowed! :)

Steak was delicious and cooked beautifully. The wait staff was highly attentive, friendly, and quick. The price was right for the portion served. The establishment was clean and a nice atmosphere with a bar, pool tables and a dance floor. The dinner menu was limited to steak but sandwiches are on the menu for lunch. I say this place is an oasis in the middle of nowhere with a great country spirt

We visited the Co-​op based on one posted review. It was good food and the restaurant was very clean. It is also a very nice alternative to driving east to grab a meal. We both had steak sandwiches which were cooked to order, soft drinks and shared a huge basket of fries. The tab came to $ 32 with tip.
They have a dance floor, outdoor seating and an arena out back. Country music was playing on the jukebox and the bar area was full of local ranchers. I felt like I was back in Indiana except the patrons were wearing cowboy hats instead of John Deere ball hats.
We will be back.

I came with my husband, who grew up almost across the street from this bar and restaurant, back when it was called The Desert Rose, a run-​down old bar favored by bikers, both the weekend ‘hobby biker’, and the less family friendly, full-​time kind of biker. Many years ago this was a regular diner that serviced the numerous families and busloads of people passing through on US Highway 80, which was the road of choice for points south and southwest from the Phoenix Metropolitan area. They could stop here for soup, sandwiches, pie and yes, even beer. Eventually US 80 was replaced by bigger and faster highways and it became more of a scenic back road. The diner’s business traffic dwindled and it became less of a stopping point for traveling families and more of a destination for bikers on road rallies and scenic rides. I also grew up not far from it over in the Town of Buckeye, so I was no stranger to this old bar and it’s past.
So THAT was how it came to be that my husband and I visited about 8 PM one Saturday night almost a month ago, desperately hungry and dead tired after a long day of remodeling work at a house we own in Buckeye. We left our toddler with grandma and grandpa and headed across the street to finally see the ‘new’ restaurant in Arlington.
What’s nice about the Co-​Op Grill is that their menu is clear and simple, leaning towards basic grill fare: steaks, burgers and chicken, baked potatoes, French fries, cowboy beans and green salads. There are a few other offerings, but by and large this is the bulk of their menu. I firmly believe that a restaurant should find a few things they are really good at and just do those things well. The Co-​Op Grill adheres to this adage and does these few menu items quite well.
My husband ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and an iced tea. I ordered a petite steak with baked beans, garlic bread and salad and a margarita. Turned out they ran out of beans earlier that night so the waitress offered me a baked potato as a substitute, which was just fine. Also, that was the most delicious, softest garlic Texas Toast I’ve ever had. Damn, it was mouth wateringly good.
My steak was also delicious and tender and flame grilled over the fire pit out back with just the right amount of charring on the sides. It was damn near perfect, *except* for the fact that I ordered it medium rare and got it VERY rare, almost blue throughout the center of the steak. But I was so hungry that I just devoured all the parts around the outer edges that were cooked through. I simply left the raw center untouched, not wanting to wait to eat any longer or to be a pain in the ass and have them re-​heat the remains of a half-​eaten steak. As a SOP the grill master should do a firmness test to make sure it’s cooked correctly before they send it out to the customer though. My margarita was also delicious, except I forgot to specify, and the waitress forgot to ask, no salt. Yuck, I hate salted rims. (Is it weird that I despise salt on my margaritas? It probably is.) My husband had no complaints about his chicken sandwich, French fries or his iced tea. He devoured everything.
The ambiance here is nice in a very relaxed kind of way. The tables are long picnic tables and you sit on simple benches, the condiments are housed in a repurposed Corona six-​pack caddy and there is a tin bucket at the end of the table for a roll of paper towels; it’s all very informal, which suits this location perfectly. The tables are all clustered at the end of an old fashioned dance floor and elevated stage and there seems to be a second, smaller, bar on the opposite side of the dining room too. Plus, there is covered patio seating all around the front and sides of the building.
There was a jukebox playing music halfway between the main bar and the dining room and it was a teeny tiny bit too loud for my tastes, since it was just filling a large wooden room with music that noisily reverberated off of the wooden dance floors, but the music choice wasn’t offensive and a few little kids were entertaining themselves, and everyone else, by dancing on the dance floor and stage area as their families dined. It was cute to see the children playing so happily, without scowls of disapproval, in such a casual, family environment.
The weather is glorious right now and this whole area is very scenic, so pick a Saturday to drive out to the far southwestern part of Maricopa county and see the old Gillespie Dam just a few miles South of the Co-​Op Grill, and take the family on a mini road trip, then stop back to enjoy a delicious steak or burger while your kids dance like little fools to the juke box. You won’t regret it.