River Grille — Restaurant in Bentonville

A Perfect Anniversary Dinner – Thanks to River Grille & a Great Hotel Recommendation! While staying at the Residence Inn in Rogers, we asked the front desk for a special place to celebrate our anniversary—and Beth, the incredibly helpful and thoughtful front desk agent, recommended the River Grille Steakhouse in nearby Bentonville. We are so glad she did! From the moment we arrived, we knew we were in for a treat. The atmosphere was elegant and perfectly romantic, with soft lighting, cozy seating, and just the right amount of ambiance to make it feel special without being too formal. The menu was absolutely fantastic—from starters to dessert, every item was beautifully presented and full of flavor. The steaks were cooked to perfection, melt-in-your-mouth tender, and bursting with savory richness. We also tried a couple of chef-recommended sides and a bottle of wine from their well-curated list, and everything was top-notch. You can tell the kitchen takes great pride in both quality and presentation. The service was warm, attentive, and paced just right for a romantic evening. We never felt rushed, and our server made us feel genuinely welcomed and celebrated once they learned it was our anniversary. What made the night even more special was knowing it all came from a thoughtful recommendation by our hotel. We probably wouldn’t have found River Grille without it—and now we’ll never forget it. If you're looking for an exceptional dining experience in the Bentonville area, whether it's for a celebration or just a night out, River Grille Steakhouse is a must-visit. It’s the kind of place that leaves a lasting impression—and helped make our anniversary truly...

Was excited to try River Grille this evening for my birthday dinner and we were sad to leave underwhelmed and felt like everything was very overpriced. We have no issue paying for a great meal, as that was the hope this evening, however the quality didn’t match up.

The restaurant atmosphere is very nice, I did enjoy that. White table cloths, well dressed staff, nice jazz music.

We ordered an appetizer of the meatballs, a salad, filet, seafood scampi and a loaded baked potato. The meatballs were very good! My salad ($10, pictured below) was an extreme disappointment. The lettuce did not taste very fresh at all and the toppings were very sparse— advertised on the menu to come topped with cheese yet arriving with about three very small clumps and hardly anything else. My steak was cooked beautifully, but lacked much flavor or tenderness. The “loaded” potato, an extra $9 as the meals don’t come with sides, lacked much toppings at all but did have plenty of butter which I at least appreciated. My husband’s seafood scampi tasted very good, but the portion was small for the price and it lacked much seafood. There were 3 shrimp, 3 tiny mussels, and 1 small scallop, which was a bit disappointing when he was expecting a decent amount of seafood.

Our server was fine, but not what we expected for a fine dining experience. He didn’t introduce himself, never shared any specials, didn’t ask us about the occasion, but he did scrape the breadcrumbs off the table! Lol

I’m sad to say I don’t recommend this restaurant for the price and we won’t...

It's certainly possible that we caught River Grille on an off night, but we probably won't be back as a result.

One of the reasons you go to a restaurant like River Grille is because they are exceptional at making food that is difficult to prepare​ at an elite level at home - namely, steaks & seafood.

Our dinner took forever to arrive and everything was either "OK" or "Poor". The steaks were... OK. I had the 30 oz. bone-in ribeye and my wife had a 12 oz ribeye and they were very average, not uniformly cooked and felt like they were cooked by a chef that doesn't excel at cooking steak.

We each also had a lobster tail, and these were quite badly overcooked, and frankly tasted badly enough that they weren't worth eating.

Our server was exceptional, he did his best with what he was working with, but our meal was about the equivalent (or worse) of an Outback Steakhouse at top shelf prices. After waiting nearly 90 minutes for food, I'm not about to start sending things back, maybe their second attempt would have been better, I don't know - it was our anniversary and we really just wanted to make the best of it.

Maybe we just got really unlucky, clearly this isn't how they've built their reputation, but I won't be back, there's plenty of good food in the area to come back again and drop $300-400 on a dinner for two that's sub par. Even the cream spinach was pretty awful, just an overall disappointment across the board other than the atmosphere and server that felt 5 Star, but the food barely gets 2 Stars...