The Grove is a great place for gathering with friends and family. The atmosphere is lively and the bartenders are friendly and knowledgeble. The menu has a variety of pizzas, salads, pastas and apps-although I wish they included simple entrees like grilled chicken or fish w/ veggies. The Grove has the potential for greatness.\r
That being said, first they need to fire their Chef. What sounds good on the menu fails miserably in execution. The only upside are the cheese and meat trays.\r
The tuna salad was noticably overcooked-grey tuna! Any decent chef would've caught that before it left the kitchen. \r
The next time I tried a pasta-chicken w/carmelized onions, expected robust flavor, instead boring and lacking complexity. This last time we shared mussels, a pizza and ordered the house salads-how can they screw that up? First the salad dressing was a lovely asian inspired delight, however it mustve been sitting in the window for a while because being mostly spinach and shredded carrots it was totally soggy and limp- tasted ok but would benefit from some crunchy greens. The mussels were chewy and bland, the broth was flavorless. We went for the garlic chicken pizza, sounded great, but it was so salty that we didnt finish it - three people didnt finish a small pizza! \r
The service also leaves something to be desired. Its generally busy when we've gone so its been difficult to get your servers attention if you need something - then once you ask it takes forever to get it. The servers have also been unhelpful when it comes to choosing wine in stark contrast to the bartenders who were great and made awesome recommendations. Our last waiter, when asking to recommend a something dry, e.g., referred to the flight menu and told us to choose from there. \r
In summary, great concept, great place to hang out with friends. Order your wine at the bar or otherwise get recommendations before you sit down, stick with the cheese and sampler trays and if you can grab a bite on the way!
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