The Granary — Restaurant in Billings

A group of 8 of us recently visited the newly remodeled Granary to try out the new menu and look at the much needed remodel inside. First off, the inside decor is very nice. It now has a bit of a modern farmhouse vibe with lighter colors yet keeping the original charm of the old Granary. The patio however looks the same as it did. The food was a big letdown. No one at our table was happy with their meal. The fish tacos consisted of three small round crunchy open faced tortillas with a small amount of fish and some garnish. Those three tiny cracker sized tacos were $15. There wasn’t enough to barely fill a grown man yet it’s on their Shareables portion of the menu. Interesting. The flatbreads are a better value for $15 but the flavor was a bit underwhelming and could have used more sauce. The shrimp seafood roll was another disappointment. The sandwich was served on a warm slate like platter accompanied by a wilted blob of plain mixed greens for garnish. The sandwich had a large amount of butter on the roll, three small shrimp, a little garnish and some type of Mayo which was tasteless. Nothing special or unique there. The grossest part was looking at the wilted blob of greens that should have been replaced with fries or at least something edible. That sandwich was $16. We were asked if we wanted to order some fried potato wedges, so we did and they were the best part of the meal but at an additional cost. There was nothing we had that wowed any of us and worthy of a repeat. As a group we were looking forward to the reopening of the Granary because it has been a iconic restaurant in Billings that we’ve enjoyed for many many years but unfortunately as it stands I’m not too excited to return.

Since my previous review we haven’t been back…until a couple weeks ago. Celebrating a family birthday, a group of us sat in the bar area during happy hour. The waitress was very nice and attentive. Some of us ordered food and unlike our last visit, it was very good. I got the 50/50 burger and it was cooked perfectly with a nice smokey flavor. It came with fries which was nice we didn’t have to order them separately. They comped a lovely piece of chocolate cake for the birthday girl which many places no longer do, so that was a nice perk. I have changed my 2 star review to 4-5. The Granary has such a long history in Billings. I really hope this is a positive path forward for them as we would love for...

Sadly, one of the worst fine dining experiences ever last night! The evening started well, with prompt service and excellent appetizers. It was all down hill from there. Four at our table, two ordered lamb, and two ordered pasta dishes. It took an excessive amount of time for our food to come out. The lamb dishes were cold, and despite being ordered medium rare, both were beyond well done. I have had dried beef jerky with more moisture left than the lamb we were served. The waitress was very apologetic and the manager even came out, which was appreciated. We decided not to take a chance on more lamb and instead we both ordered sirloin steaks. You would think the kitchen would have expedited our replacement meals, but again, an excessive wait. My steak was much closer to raw than medium rare, and the other steak was past medium. The manager offered to replace both of our streaks, but sorry, two strikes is an out with that bad of food. They did take some off the price of the meal, and comped a desert, but to be honest, they probably should have done more given two of us received two bad meals. The manager and server were wonderful, and the pastes dishes were excellent, but who ever was working meat that night needs to be completely retrained or fired (it really...

Overall we were fairly disappointed. The service was friendly and the environment was really nice! We were super impressed coming in. Our drinks were really good and the appetizer pretzel was amazing. However, the entrees ended up being disappointing for the price and our wait from sit down to entrees at the table was an hour and a half.

We had their bison short rib, a salmon fillet special, and a marbled flat iron steak. The bison short rib was pretty good, as were the mashed potatoes. The salmon was also good but lacked much in the way of a side. The biggest disappointment was the steak. It had an odd smoked taste to it. Hard to describe but it seemed like it was over smoked in hickory or something. The buttered pastas for the kids was okay but the pasta seemed under done and the kids didn’t really enjoy it (hard to please kids though).

The biggest frustration and disappointment was the wait for food. It was almost like they forgot about us. Keeping our kids occupied for an hour and a half stuck in a booth was not pleasant.

Maybe it was an off night. It was steady but didn’t seem overly busy. The pretzel and drinks was worth the trip if we stopped there. The entrees as I mentioned didn’t live up to the cost...