Grant Grove Restaurant

I don’t understand the negative reviews. No, this isn’t a fine dining restaurant so don’t come in with those expectation. Instead you will find tasty food, sure to hit the spot after a day in the beautiful outdoors, served with a smile. Andrew happily served my girlfriend and I dinner with a smile despite the fact that he was slammed with about 4 families as soon as the restaurant opened. He was the only server on the floor at opening, and still managed to be happy and efficient at serving all of us. The food was delicious and filling, great attitude from the staff, all at a decent price. Overall great experience! (Posted same review in the other restaurant’s Unilocal,I just want to make sure they get the credit they deserve!)

We went to breakfast this morning and what a disappointment! There were no clean tables and yet the waitress told us to sit anywhere we liked. We chose the least dirty of the tables and waited and waited all the while watching other patrons go and try to find utensils, syrup, etc. because the service was so poor. Finally, the manager showed up with a carafe of coffee. She came by our table to ask if we wanted refills in the dirty cups that were left from the previous customers! We gave up and went back to our room in Muir Lodge and made out instant oatmeal. Glad we brought our own food.

This is a wonderful place to spend a romantic winter weekend! The staff really takes good care of you, especially Catherine. The rooms were clean, comfortable, and exactly what you should expect from a national park. Everyone went out of their way to make our stay as comfortable as we had hoped, even though we were there for an extra night because of the snow. We can’t wait to go back.

After reading the Unilocal reviews, our group of 12 was hesitant to dine at the Grant Grove Restaurant. However, being that our stay at the John Muir Lodge was for an entire weekend, we knew we’d have to grub there at least once. We made reservations for Saturday night and were immediately nervous that we’d arrive for our reservation and that the staff would be scurrying to put tables together while our 6 children’s patience ran thin. We figured the food would be barely passable as edible and the service would be rude, we’d pay a several hundred dollar tab, and be on our way.
When we arrived at 6:30 Saturday evening after a long day in the snow, our tables (we requested a kids table and an adult table) were awaiting us near a window at the back of the restaurant. It would be a nice view if it wasn’t already dark. Water was immediately brought to our tables upon our arrival.
Our server was attentive and helpful. We brought our own wine to have corked and he opened our bottles for us (however, didn’t pour, which I found odd). We ordered right away so the kids wouldn’t get squirmy. We ordered appetizers: the waffle garlic fries for adults (uh-​may-​zing!!!), regular fries for kids (just as standard as fries come; the kids gobbled them up), and the hoisin-​barbecue wings (to die for!). Due to the terrible Unilocal reviews, we wanted to make our large order easy for the small staff so we decided to just order several pizzas. We requested one of each kind: cheese (for the kiddos, never tried this one but they ate it!), pepperoni (for the veggie hating adults, heard it was great), the Namaste (spinach, artichoke, etc… this was so yummy with white sauce!), and the Buffalo Chicken pizza, which was everyone’s favorite! As we ate we couldn’t believe this was the same place that had such terrible reviews.
We were so pleasantly surprised with the service and food at Grant Grove Restaurant and will definitely return during our next trip to the park. Honestly, our good experience made our trip because since we were happy, the kids were happy, and we were able to enjoy the rest of our evening playing games in the lodge because we had full bellies (and a little buzz).
Hopefully this place has turned over a new leaf. Unilocalers, don’t fear… and at least order the pizza.

The Osso Buco Christmas Eve dinner special was best meal during our stay so far. The sauce was great and helped made the meal. Even though you might feel trapped we enjoyed our meals. Talk to the wait staff about mixing it up a bit. We did.

I must say, after reading the reviews for this restaurant, I was pretty shaken up. I mean it must be REALLY AWFUL for this place to have 2 stars right? But lemme give you the lowdown.
My boyfriend and I stayed at the John Muir lodge last night and stopped here for breakfast before hitting the road. As many have said before us, this is the only spot in SEKI for food so your options are limited. Perhaps this is also why we decided to give it a shot despite these gut wrenching reviews.
To our complete surprise, this place was NOTHING like the reviews said before us. Either new management has taken over, or we came at a good time, but our breakfast experience here was nothing short of warm & fuzzy feelings.
The only server, Pamela, was attending to 5 tables all full of hungry campers effortlessly with a huge smile on her face the entire time. She was sweet, happy, and attentive — by that I mean our coffee cups were never empty, our food was hot, our check was fast, and our tummies, FULL!
For breakfast, I ordered the potatoes and 2 eggs a la carte and my boyfriend ordered the vegetable ratatouille with 2 eggs sunny side up, as well as two orders of toast and jam. Our check came out to be 24 dollars total which is pretty affordable given our remote 7,000 ft location.
SO THERE IT IS FOLKS. Maybe we got lucky, or maybe Pamela just rocks, either way — WE ARE HAPPY CAMPERS :)

Zero stars for service: none is paying attention to people waiting for a table, waittime for waitress to take the order was about 20 minutes, took about 40 minutes for food to be ready. Then the order was wrong. Do not go here unless you have plenty of time.
3.5 stars for quality of food, tasty and much better than what is expected of the only restaurant in National Park on the middle of nowhere.

The food is actually pretty good, especially considering the place is in the middle of nowhere with very few other options. However, the service was terrible (nice people, just sloooowwwww) — management needs to have more servers on staff when the lodge is booked! The check-​in desk is literally 5 feet from the restaurant; they should know exactly how many guests to expect for meals, and staff accordingly. The place was packed, and there were only two very overworked waiters.
Anyway, we got:
«Appetizers» (in quotes because everything we ordered actually all came out at once):
–A cup of the potato soup (soup of the day) — not great; thin broth + greasy
–Garlic fries — they’re not kidding about the «mile high» in the description! HUGE portion. Heavy on the garlic, which I loved.
–Caesar salad — good
Main dishes:
-«Namastanzaa» (I may have misspelled that) pizza (white sauce, garlic, artichoke hearts, fresh spinach) — very good! SUPER garlicky, so avoid this if you’re not a garlic fan! It was also great as leftovers the next day on our hike.
–Burger + side of fries — good; nothing fancy, just a solid burger with fresh toppings. Hit the spot.

Beer and wine at a state park! We got here later in the evening and split a ½ pound burger fries and salad which were all very good and reasonably priced and it was plenty. We didn’t spit the brews though.

Service was better than most of the reviews. The chili was the best and most affordable at $ 4 per bowl.
Like most restaurants in the National Parks, they ran out of things on Sunday. No cheese for the chili. Oh well, things could be worse.
Waitresses were pleasant and efficient.

This entire place is run like a communist era food facility. There is simply no pride in anything they do. The overall services of Grant Village and this restaurant are an embarrassment to the U.S. government and park service.
A shame to have such a shitful restaurant within the beauty of a National Park.

Giving this place ⁵⁄₅ stars because it was absolutely amazing after all the other restaurants/​businesses I’ve had to deal with while visiting Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Park.
FOOD: Their food might not be somewhere I would crave or go out of the way to get, but honestly compared to all the places I’ve eaten this weekend, this place is gourmet! We grabbed the Burger and wings, and both were actually really great and the price was much lower than what we had grown accustomed to paying after this weekend.
SERVICE: The service is probably the biggest reason I’m giving this place a ⁵⁄₅. After spending time in Sequoia and Kings Canyon this weekend, I basically had to accept that because it was a national park and there was nowhere else to go, everyone would treat you like complete shit. Luckily and surprisingly, this was not at all the case here. Not only was the service at this restaurant great, they were extremely friendly and helpful and when I needed to get some work done they allowed me to stay at the table after I finish my meal and just utilize the free wifi. When they were finally closing down and turning off their lights (2 hours after their posted business hours) they even recommended a nearby location I could use to get some more work done.
Super surprised and impressed by this location. Especially since I had a horrible experience with the affiliated housing/​lodging office on the same day.

We had a veggie burger and fries, and a Caesars salad. The food was okay, but not great. Considering we’re in a national park, it was acceptable. The menu is very limited. Vegan options are few. The service was good. Their beer selection is good — I drank a local beer, a General Sherman IPA out of Fresno. It was excellent, albeit overpriced at $ 5.95 for a 12 oz beer. Dinner was $ 34 for two (counting tip), so it’s more than it’s worth, but still okay when you’ve been hiking all day and are tired of cooking with your Coleman camp stove.

For years I have been to this Restaurant, many people have a very low review on this place. When I was young it was really good always full and wow the service very attentive and the service no complaints… as the years went by the food and the service started to decline but the prices kept going higher and higher. Oh well huh? things changes, the food is ok, just got to get lucky who’s serving you and the time you get there. There are dishes that are pretty good, you’ll be the judge of that. As for me, I drive all the way down to Visalia to eat in a decent Restaurant …

This was one of the worst dining experiences I have had in the US. Where to start? Terrible food, worse service, and the busboy was using a disgusting dirty rag to clean the table next to us. The burgers were dry and sour. The waitress was annoyed when we asked where the pickle spears were. Had to ask for condiments multiple times. Ended up just grabbing the water pitcher and filling our own glasses after asking multiple times. All the while multiple staff stood around doing nothing. Shame on Delaware North Corporation for letting this place be this crappy: Leadership comes from the top down, and this was a rotten horrible dining experience.

Considering that the dining options are limited within the park, we reasoned that Grant Grove would churn out lazy, reliably subpar dishes. We were glad to be proven wrong. Who can reasonably expect fine dining in the forest? Come on, you dining snobs!
We ordered a cobb salad and a hamburger. We were pleasantly surprised that they split the dishes on two plates for us. The huge salad was loaded with ham, turkey, and avocado. The hamburger, while cooked too well for my tastes, consisted of a handmade patty. The fries were thick cut and fairly crisp. Good job.
The breakfast buffet was also a welcome surprise. The egg and ham scramble and roasted squashes tasted good. The berry muffin was very sweet and fluffy. Bacon was chewy but passable. Biscuit was no Popeyes biscuit but passable. Steer clear of the rubbery pancakes and the overcooked ham. Berries tasted pretty fresh.

Wow, I have never had such TERRIBLE SERVICE and inattention to food safety before. They were not busy, it is the off season. We waited 30 minutes to be seated and have drinks brought, then the waitress never brought over sugar for my iced tea, we had to go find it ourselves. Then another 45 minutes until we got our food, the Pork Tenderloin, which was the «special of the day». When it finally arrived, the pork was cold, raw, and bloody. I am not a chef, but shouldn’t you learn in chef school that pork must be properly cooked? We sent the pork back for proper cooking, but the waitress said the chef claims the pork had already been cooked to «the proper temperature». THIS IS THE WORST RESTAURANT I HAVE BEEN TO IN AGES, and no one should visit it. It should be closed and padlocked as a public service.

I got the hummus (with cucumber, flat bread, tomatoes, and celery), Grant burger with side salad.
The bread w the hummus had hair on it, the burger patty had hair in it, as well as my salad. The burger patty seemed like it was from a frozen preformed patty.
I can deal with one fuck up but three? I think not!

The food is pretty decent, but the service is terrible. We had dinner here twice and breakfast once.
For our first dinner I had the trout almondine ($ 18). It was really wonderful, on par with many I’ve had in good restaurants. My husband had linguine and meatballs ($ 15) which was pretty terrible. The pasta was overcooked and the sauce was watery and not covering the meatballs. We also had a chocolate layer cake ($ 4) that was really good. The service was really slow and inattentive, despite the fact that the restaurant was not crowded. Our meal took over an hour and we never received bread and butter like other tables. Our waitress had a bit of an attitude.
Breakfast was pretty good for both of us. I had 2 eggs scrambled, toast and hashbrowns ($ 7). All the food was pretty good, although the toast came out dry and when I asked for butter, the waitress (the same one as the night before) looked at me like I had asked for foie gras. It took forever for her to bring it out and she said it was because it took the kitchen a long time to find some butter, which is bizarre to me — all the breakfast entrees come with toast so I can’t imagine butter is an uncommon request. My husband had a fried egg, bacon, cheese and hashbrown sandwich on an English muffin ($ 6.50) that he really liked. Again, the place was fairly uncrowded but the service was terrible and our meal took over an hour with attitude.
For our second dinner, I decided to order the trout again since it was so good the night before. It was much worse this time. The fish tasted very fishy — I guess they just reused the fish from the night before and it wasn’t as fresh. The rice also tasted different and had a spiciness I didn’t care for. I can’t recall ever having the same meal from the same restaurant taste so different. My husband had pulled pork ($ 17), which he liked. The second dinner, we made the mistake of coming at 8 pm (they close at 9) and the place was mobbed. We had to wait forever to get seated and then it was at least 15 or 20 minutes before our waiter came over. All told, our meal took more than 1.5 hours. I fault our waiter less because, unlike our first waitress, he seemed extremely busy and frazzled and not just lazy. But they should hire more staff or something because it was pretty ridiculous. Come earlier for dinner if you can.
I don’t think the prices are as ridiculous as others do. Some things are pretty overpriced, like the $ 15 pasta and meatballs, but the breakfast foods and some of the dinner entrees are less than we’d pay in the bay area — and this is in the middle of a National Park so I would expect prices to be higher.

The Grilled Eggplant sandwich with sweet onions was tasty! Pile it up with lettuce, tomatoes and more crisp red onions with a side of fruit. I would definitely come back and have this same dish next time. I also got a scoop of their Strawberry ice Cream and it had nice chunks of strawberries in it– yum!
It is located right across from the visitor Center.