Skara Grill

CLOSED!
Skara Grill was a nice addition to the neighborhood and a great place to get a casual lunch or dinner in a pleasant surrounding.
Unfortunately, after a little more than a year of operation, the restaurant has closed. (I suggested meeting a friend there for lunch today and was surprised to find the parking lot empty and a sign inside the door saying thanks for your business.)
I’m not sure of the reason behind the closing. The renovations to the building were extensive and well done, so possibly the cost was too much of a drag. Maybe it was the price point, which was moderate — not cheap but not expensive — missing the budget-​conscious at one end and the upscale at the other. Or maybe it’s just the economy and the number of people who have scaled back on dining out.
Regardless, it’s very sad to see this venture go.

My husband and I ordered takeout and were told 15 – 20 minutes. We live nearby and decided to walk with our baby to pick up our meal. It was early evening on a Friday night. When we arrived the server took our money and then checked with the kitchen staff as to the whereabouts of our order. We arrived about 20 – 25 minutes after calling it in.
The order was never placed with the kitchen. We were now told to wait another 5 minutes for the order. We waited another 25 minutes with a restless baby now headed very close to bedtime. When I thought I saw our order coming off the grill, I asked if that was ours, as we now had a fussy baby ready to go. It wasn’t ours. I then explained that we needed to go, that it had nearby been an hour since I called in the order, and I either wanted my money back or my food. She did apologize but that was it.
The food was average, nothing spectacular. We will not be going back as there are far more family-​friendly places on Centre Street with better food.

I went there with a Greek who is a very picky eater and he loved the Avgolemono soup. It was very well prepared — with no cornstarch which is often a downfall with this soup. His octopus was a tender but a bit dry. I ordered the grilled calamari and it was prepared perfectly — very tender and lightly grilled. My other dining companion ordered the Shrimp Santorini which was really delicious.
The sides that come with the meals were fine but nothing exceptional — oven roasted potatoes, rice with tomato sauce, green beans in tomato sauce. The Gigantes Plaki (giant beans) were well prepared with a pleasant sauce. The side salad is perfectly adequate, but if you want a Greek salad, you should order it separately.
The rice pudding was a big disappointment — it tasted like it had been made with skim milk. However, the Galactobouriko was outstanding — almost as good as homemade!
Nice Greek wines by the glass. You can also get a small bottle of Retsina if you are into that. The service was excellent — not too fast or too slow. We got there early on a Fiday night — 6:30ish and the place was full by the time we left. It seems to be popular with families.

This place is great, back over and over the staff is great Greg wonderful. The balance between Greek and American on the menu is perfect. My gyro was one of the best I’ve ever had, my ginger ale was a perfect blend of ginger and ale. The dressing on the salad was fresh homemade, the only thing I want in a bottle is beer even then isn’t draft better?

Nope. Let me explain:
The décor (I always start here… don’t know why but here I go again): It could have been awesome but overall it struck me like they paid someone a lot of money, they followed through with the design, but forgot to dim the lights so that the mood lighting was used. With the lights up at full blast it felt like I was eating in a cafeteria. A $ 15 – 20 a plate cafeteria. Oh — and get the Greek pop station off the speakers, it sucks and lends negative points to this already hurting review.
The waitstaff: Not much better then the décor to be honest. She was friendly, but when they weren’t serving a table they were goofing off. It came off badly.
The crowd: Crowd? What crowd? Oh, you mean the 4 other people in there? That’s not a crowd silly, those are suckers just like you.
The food: Greasy appetizer, almost stale bread, awful beer selection, soggy vegetables, and tasteless chicken kabobs. All in one meal? You have got to be kidding me.
Until they improve, and I don’t think they will, spend your shrinking entertainment budget elsewhere. I hate giving one star to this place because I waited as long to get out and try it but it was overpriced and underwhelming. What else can I do?

Lovely décor, offstreet parking, courteous and helpful staff. extensive menu of greek offerings as well as diner standards.
lamb chops were over cooked, lamb shish kabob wasn’t hot. appetizers were excellent though, especially the saganaki. after we complained, the waiter deleted the charge for the lamb chops.
odd extra charge for feta cheese on the small garden salad included in the dinner. probably a good thing for those who don’t like feta cheese. but then, those folks probably don’t like Greek restaurants.

Went here this week for the first time. My first impression was awe at the difference in décor between this new place and the old Friendly’s that was here before. A for décor!
The place was pretty empty when we got there. Service was very prompt and the server was ok, not spectacular.
The menu is pretty good and is diverse enough for someone as picky as I am.
I was very excited when I saw the stuffed pepper dish and you can imagine how disappointed I was when the server told me they were out of the dish when I tried ordering it.
We ended up sharing a Gyro and some sort of pasta dish. They gyro was again just ok (I’ve had better). The pasta was also just ok. Portions are medium size. The rice and the potatoes we got as sides were good. Oh, and the bruscetta appetizer was pretty good.
I’m not sure if our meal choices were the reasons why I can’t give Skara Grill more than 3 stars but I wouldn’t mind going back for something else.

The décor is really, really nice. The non-​native would never guess that the building used to be a Friendly’s unless someone told them… The flowers outside are very pretty, and the tomatoes growing on the edge of the parking lot facing the train tracks are neat.
The service was quick, efficient, and very friendly.
My mom and I had a very lovely lunch. My mom got the veggie gyro and really enjoyed hers. She also had an order of rice, and when she asked whether it was cooked with dairy, the owner came over to tell her it was made with margerine which should be OK. Since my mom is very allergic to milk, the owner brought over a stick of margerine with the label on it so my mom could read the ingredients to ensure it was safe for her. (It was.) She really enjoyed her meal.
I had the chicken souvlakia (chicken kebabs) and roast potatoes, which were quite good. The kebabs were served off the kebab itself, which seems a bit odd, but I’m not actually complaining. It was convenient!
I was very impressed by Skara and I highly recommend it. I have fond memories of going to the Friendly’s icecream window as a kid, and I still find it strange when I drive by and Friendly’s isn’t there, but Skara is a worthy successor to that space. The food is delicious.

The Avgolemono soup was bland and cold, but too small of a portion to bother sending back.
the Orzo dish called Youvetsi was a much more appreciably sized portion, but it was als tasteless, and very dry. Not to mention it came served in a Dog Dish. Asked for extra sauce, which barely helped matters. I will concede Skara that, their tomato sauce is decently flavorful, however it wasn’t enough to save the overcooked lamb. Two of my favorite dishes — when my grandmother makes them — so I knew not to have high hopes given what I compare it to, but even given my low expectations Not even the salad tastes good. Avoid avoid avoid. Overstaffed as it was, service was not good and it was not a busy night.
I’m also not a fan of the owner’s comment below. You use vegetable stock, so you think that makes your food not bland? Causation and correlation are two different things, my friend.
And I’m not going to address my complaints with you, because I’m not going back. Rather I’m gonna tell everyone on here how bad your food is, so you can go out of business and let someone who knows how to cook take that modest piece of real estate off your hands.

wife — had delivery: Small portions, too expensive, chicken kabobs burnt, forgot calamari, mediocre flavors. The second star is for the tzatziki and mousaka which were good.
me — went for lunch with grandmother. Had sandwiches. Very disappointed. Too many onions, not enough meat, bland tomatoes and lettuce. Extra few bucks got me about a half a cup of bland rice.
In response to the comments below: Thank you for the correction, my wife did indeed pick up her order. She would like to add that the baklava was really good, if a bit soggy.

The Skara Grill recently opened in West Roxbury, and it seems to have been doing moderately well. There is a very modern feel to the place, with wide-​screen TVs at every corner, and there is convenient outdoor seating. The food was pretty standard Greek fare, with the exception of the custard dessert which was simply delightful. Overall a nice addition to West Roxbury.

I was pretty disappointed with my experience at Skara. We went in and were seated right away but that’s where the waiting began.
It took them 10 mins to have the busboy bring over water. Then another 10 for the waiter to take our order and then 5 more to bring over the complimentary bread. You’re probably thinking I went on a Friday night, but no, sadly this was around 7 on a Wednesday. The food was good, It wasn’t great though. The grape leaves (dolmades) were incredibly disappointing. It was as if they opened a can and plopped 4 down on a plate. The rest of the food was a little bland and over cooked. I’m not really sure if I’m going to want to try this restaurant again because the service was so poor. I probably will though, just to give them the benefit of the doubt.
On the plus side, it did appear as though they have a mini takeaway section with desserts and some standard Greek fare.

I give it two stars in hopes of it getting better. I have to say, I eat out… a lot… sometimes way too much. So, yes I am a bit of a foodie snob, but I’m always willing to give a place a second chance. HOWEVER, this is the one rare occasion where the first experience was so awful… there won’t be a second chance. First of all, service. Service was horrible. We had the crankiest waitress who for some odd reason believes that you should use the same little plate as your dipping plate, you’re appetizer plate and shoot, mind as well serve your meal on it to! yes, she was offended when I asked for a clean plate (basically I was told I have a plate right there, to which I kindly replied, yes I do, but I would like a CLEAN plate). She then brought us a new set of plates and lovingly slammed it down on the table and just left the dirty plates on the table. Oh, and I won’t get into the look of disgust and the hard time I got just because I asked for plain water, not sparkling water, not bottled water, just a glass of water. Oh, and don’t bother asking her to elaborate anything on the menu. The daggers will start flying out of her eyes.
Secondly, food. Everything was cold! Like stone cold, straight out of the fridge cold. I don’t like my supposedly grilled appetizers cold, I like to know that they just came off the grill… you know, cook to order.
Third, price. For awful service and cold food, this place is far too expensive. Head over to Cambridge and go to Greek Corner, yeah it’s a hit or miss with the service depending on what waitress you get, but hey, at least the food is good and fairly priced.

Don’t bother wasting your time or money. The service is SO SLOW! I mean, no one came by when we sat down. The place was packed, and we watched everyone else get served while we sat there. FINALLY, someone came over. I ordered the chicken lemon soup and a Greek salad, and my husband ordered the beef kebabs. The soup was not hot at all, but it was tasty. The rest of the meal took forever to arrive. The salad was nothing special at all. It was a Greek salad and had 1 lonely olive! Basically, it was a pile of lettuce with some feta cheese. That was it. My husband was very disappointed in his beef kebabs. They had 1 piece of pepper and onion. And the meat wasn’t very good. And too expensive for what we got. The waitress was friendly and did bring us a piece of baklava to apologize for the wait. But that doesn’t change things. I won’t be going back.

I’m a picky New Yorker with an unapologetic obsession with food. I do not make food recommendations lightly. As I sit here with a painfully full belly, I feel safe recommending Skara. If you disagree I will gladly eat your share too.
I do know one of the owners so I won’t waste your time trying to hide that fact, but he knows that I wouldn’t write anything at all if I didn’t love it, I don’t lie for my friends unless there’s a cop involved.
I’ll skip the service, it was perfect, but that’s pretty much a given. I will say that everyone who was not waiting on my table was nice, had ready smiles, and never seemed to be stationary for long.
I haven’t had anything that didn’t make me want to strike someone out of sheer ecstasy. Everything is authentic and also familiar. Fresh AND packed with ethnic flavor. How do they do it? I haven’t been able to wheedle a recipe out of him yet. I guess I’ll have to keep going.

I finally visited Skara Grill last night with a group of friends and I am so excited to have a good Greek restaurant in the neighborhood. It is about time!
It is a nice, casual restaurant with real food. Yum. The décor is very nicely done, even the ceiling had interesting details and the dining area had character — beautifully painted walls, nice lighting, this is certainly not a chain restaurant.
The service was excellent, our waiter answered a lot of questions and was very patient, quick and attentive. We ordered a bunch of different appetizers — the fried zuchini was my favorite (I am sure it has a beautiful Greek name, but I can’t remember what it was called).
For dinner I had the Youvetsi (apologies if I spelled this incorrectly), which had lamb and orzo topped with cheese. It came in a cool copper baking pot and the lamb was tender and tasty and perfectly cooked. The serving was large and I had more than enough left over for lunch today, and it reheated really well, yum!
Someone from my group ordered an eggplant dish (again, sorry for not remembering the name of it) and loved it, someone ordered a vegetarian salad which looked really nice, and filling. I can’t remember what other dishes were ordered at the table, but everyone was very happy with their choices, and I have a list of things I want to try next time I got there — which will be soon.
Oh, and the wine was excellent! The waiter suggested his favorite and I would order it again next time. The only thing I will do differently is leave room for dessert… apparently their desserts are home-​made and they looked amazing, but we had so much food there was just no more room… next time!

Despite just average reviews my husband and I checked out Skara Grill on Saturday.
Pros
A good place for dinner when you want to go out but don’t want to be above 100 dollars.
I enjoyed the décor
In West Rox. I consider it a viable alternative to Corrib, but certainly no Masona.
The spanikopita (may have spelled that incorrectly) was the star of the meal. Really delicious!
Prices/​Value — good food, relatively inexpensive
Cons
The waiter took an absurdly long time to bring our wine.
He then made up for it by being very attentive once we got our app, through the end of the meal
Other
My husband had the gyro, which he said was good but not as good as the gyro at Esperia in Brighton Ctr.
The beefteki burger tasted mostly like the feta cheese, but I don’t feel right judging a Greek restaurant on its burger. I am embarrassed to admit I ordered the burger.

I’m not reall sure if the other reviewers have been to the same place I have. I went to Skara grill last night, and it was fabulous.
Price:
The prices were spot on. I’m not sure if those complaining are cheap or what. For example, I had a gyro with salad for $ 9.95. You can get a gyro (lower quality with no sides) from a street vendor on the Common for $ 6.00. So, for $ 4 extra dollars, you get a better product, in a comfortable setting, with a salad. And this is a real salad… not iceberg lettuce with a pale tomato. They use real greens, olives, peppers, onions, and great tomatos.
Ambience: Comfortable, if a little loud. We got to sit near the patio and had a really nice breeze keeping us cool.
Service: the FOH staff was very polite and accomodating. I even noticed that during their very busy hours, the bussers were efficient and nearly transparent. We didnt have to wait a long time for our food either.
Food: my boyfriend lived in Greece as a child, so he is my guide to a cuisine I’m not familiar with. I loved my meal, and he gave the thumbs up the all the traditional dishes. He LOVES the galaktabouloko
Downsides: the red wine they served was VERY warm. They keep the bottles in the grill area, and it was not the correct temperature. After a 15 min wait, it cooled down and was fine. Also, the man working the grill needs a hair net for his arms. Seriously.

They are new and it was Memorial Day at dinner time so I gave a bit of a break since they probably haven’t worked out all the kinks yet but my first impression with the service was not good. There were multiple empty tables and we were told it would be a 20 minute wait because the kitchen was backed up but we couldn’t wait at one of the empty tables.
Our server was very nice. We ordered 2 apps and two kids meals first. Everything was delivered one at a time because «that’s the way the kitchen is giving it». The food was ok but the spinach and feta pie lacked the feta and the bread for the Greek bruschetta was very hard. The salmon entrée was quite tasty. Drink portions are rediculous, especially for the price. $ 1.95 for an 8 oz soda and no refills were offered.

Great to have a Mediterranean restaurant added to the melting pot of West Roxbury. Recently opened in the former Friendly’s so there is a parking lot!
They cut the dining area in half to expand the kitchen. Prices are kind of high to the portions you are getting. Burgers are about 10 bones and dinner entrees range from $ 14 – 27. They still have a few kinks to work out like pace, waitstaff, and cooking timing. But they are well on their way to more positive ratings.
They ran out of the gyro, which may clue in that it’s going to be a big hit. So I tried the lamb kebab and my friend had the filet mignon kebab. Please note — read the menu carefully, they jammed a lot of delicious looking dishes into two pages.
Our entrees had a choice of 2 sides (potato, rice, veggies or salad). The portions are small but the rice and veggies are fresh not, pre-​packed, microwave sides which is a plus. My kebab and my friend’s filet kebab were well seasoned. My lamb may have been a little overcooked but it was still good.
They have a great selection of wine which I was surprised. Wish I had room for dessert though! Next time.