El Grotto — Restaurant in Scarborough

Mixed feelings about our evening here.

First impressions - very busy when we arrived and very noisy. Possibly our fault for not doing enough research to realise there would be DJ playing music while we were there. The music volume did make conversation difficult.

We booked for a group of 9 (10 of us attended in the end) and were allocated 2 booths - so in effect splitting our group in half. Not ideal. In the end we all sat in one booth and although it was squeezy, it was preferable to being two smaller groups.

Ordering drinks and food at the bar was a process and a half. Each time any of our group ventured to the bar they had quite a wait ahead of them. Not knocking the staff - who were working very hard - but the process was tiresome. Why doesn't El Grotto have QR codes on their tables, like so many other businesses do?

After placing my order, I realised that the staff member had failed to include one dish; so I had to go up a second time to order food. Thankfully one of the servers was able to assist me in a timely manner.

We actually found all staff to be friendly and helpful, but somewhat stretched by the competing demands of providing drinks, food, clearing tables, attending to queries, etc. This was most noticeable when our server came to our table twice to check whether we had received all of our dishes - surely their system should allow them to know when every dish has been served.

The food was okay. Not great - not terrible - just okay. Prices are okay too, but maybe charging $12 for half a Quesadilla is a bit much.

The most disappointing aspect of the evening for me and my son was that by the time our food orders were delivered, every other member of our group had well and truly finished their meals. Ideally we would have all received our orders around the same time.

It is always good to try a new dining option, but I don't think...

I am not one to go to the effort of reviewing an experience at a restaurant or bar, however my disappointing experience at El Grotto, I feel that I have to. We had had a table of 5, myself my partner and 3 others. I ordered drinks for the 5 of us and dinner for myself and my partner at around 7:55pm at the bar. We were advised that the kitchen would close soon. After ordering we told the 3 others at our table to go order now quickly which they did. When they tried to order it was 8:02pm and they were told the kitchen was closed. My friends trying to order explained that we had just ordered and that we were dining together on the same table...they had no sympathy for this situation. I would like to add the fact that the place was quite empty especially we could not see anyone else eating. This made for a very uncomfortable situation: having to eat dinner in front of our hungry friends whilst they had to wait for us to finish before we could go somewhere else. I am extremely disappointed how this situation was dealt with. Fortunately after we had uncomfortably finished eating in front of the others, we found better service and enjoyable...

Been here a couple of times and it served the purpose for a brew. My last visit I delved a little deeper into the menu and tried a couple of cocktails. They were very average - lacking depth and flavour, just really soda-watery. Which is poor considering the high prices we all pay for drinks these days! They were roughly $18 a pop. I tried to change a cocktail that my friend wrongly order for me. It had no flavour and I wanted to taste something good for the price. Upon politely explaining the situation I was asked who was gonna cover the charge ? My experiences in the past with these situations have always ended with establishments trying to make keep customers happy and if that means wearing a drink on the chin for the sake of not creating a hater it is normally a no brainer. I was told by the manager on the night that I was wrong ? Either way they lost business from 6 locals that night. As I drove past when leaving 30 minutes later and it I could see that it was starting to pack out, I couldn't help but wonder how many thousands of dollars they would pour tonight ? Yet they couldn't look after 1...