Granite City Food & Brewery — Restaurant in Cedar Rapids

Service was incredibly slow and lousy. Waited 15 minutes 2 get our bill. An ungodly amount of time to order our meal and 2 get pop refills. The onion soup was EXTREMELY AND INCREDIBLY SALTY AND POTENT...we ALL left our Soups 2 B taken away after trying to eat it. Absolutely the worst. Their strawberry lemonade was some of the best we've ever had. My salad was very good and their ranch dressing yummy. My pasta dish was BARELY WARM. I'm not sure how, but my pasta was over cooked... yet hard and not tender in any way. It had a TON of sundried tomatoes, dare I say way too many. It was SUPPOSED 2 Asparagus in it. They were few and far between. And Absolutely NO top/spear parts at all. ALL MIDDLE PIECES AND END PIECES. And a lot of the end pieces should've definitely been thrown away as they were ungodly tough and woody. It was also an extremely DRY pasta meal. No sauce, butter, juice, gravy, nothing there 2 coat the pasta with at all. I am someone who ABHORS black Licorice and by extension...fennel. I do not like the taste, the smell, nothing. I also get a horrid headache from it and ridiculous heart burn and indigestion sonething fierce. So I asked them waiter 2 make explicit instructions 2 please leave that off and out of my dish. No problem he says. OK. My husband ordered their Meatloaf dinner. It was AMAZING, REALLY BEAUTIFULLY PRESENTED AND JUST DELICIOUS!! My son ordered a prime rib sandwich meal. Our meal took almost 30 minutes 2 get to us. We were starting to panick as we were on our way 2 a Duke Tumatoe concert after our meal. Our food finally came. My son's sandwich was disappointingly dry and devoid of any kind of flavor whatsoever. His fries were awesome though. Quite tasty. My pasta...huge disappointment. There was FENNEL EVERY WHERE!! ON TOP AND MIXED IN. I tried my hardest to pick as much as I could out, as our waiter was lackadaisical in getting back to us for anything on any level until we were virtually done. I laid all the pieces of fennel on the side of my plate. I tried everything I could possibly try to eat that pasta as I was starving. I just couldn't do it. Couldn't send it back really either as couldn't find our waiter and we were starting to REALLY get pressed 4 time in order 2 get 2 the concert as we had never been to where the concert was, didn't know the parking situation or anything. The only thing we did know is that it would take roughly 16 minutes 2 get there. And we were at the 35 minute mark. I literally had 2 flag down our waiter 2 get some take home containers. Took a fair amount of 2 even get those. One would think that the waiter would then know/assume/understand that we were ready to leave and would like the check. Ridiculous on my part, I know. Ummm...nope. I AGAIN had 2 literally Track him down to ask for and get our bill. He was BSing at another table!!! Astounding! We FINALLY got out of there and to the concert 5...

What happened Granite City? You used to be cool man.

My wife and I loved going in for Sunday brunch so when we received $100 in granite City gift cards we were psyched. I guess it's been awhile since the last time we went in because things have changed and not for the better. First change, the endless mimosas have now become infinite mimosas. Instead of just ordering mimosas they bring you four small containers. One container with champagne and the other three with different juices to mix your own mimosa. Because that's what you want when you're paying $18.99, to do extra work instead of having somebody just bring your drinks. Second chance that I noticed was the food. The sausage links tasted gelatinous inside their casing they were God awful. The fruit and pastry displays which were once full of delicious fruit now have hard barely edible fruit in them. The roast beef carving station has been moved across the restaurant which is super inconvenient. Next to the roast beef carving station there is a make your own donut station, that no one asked for, a make your own breakfast sandwich station that no one asked to our, and The omelette station where the omelette maker feels it's okay to check your phone while you're making someone's omelette which makes the safety of the gloves somewhat pointless. if you go to the station hopefully you only want one thing because all of the plates are small enough to only fit one thing. Super inconvenience.

Finally when we went to pay we found out that thegift cards we had gotten for Christmas had zero balance on them even though we had never. Upon further inspection from the manager it was found out that the gift cards or voided by the restaurant they were purchased from a little while after they were purchased for no known reason. luckily they had not charge the person we had received the gift cards from.

All in all unhappy with our visit to granite City. Won't be coming back for brunch anytime soon.

PS you're getting two stars instead of one star because your potato and bacon game...

Had the worst experience ever...I WILL NEVER RETURN!!!!! Ordered the Crispy Asian Shrimp Tacos...have had them before but this time the first bite was so HOT I could only tolerate the one bite....my husband had the fish tacos and after the first bite you could smell the fish was NOT fresh...disgusting!!!!! We told the waitress and she took the plates away and I watched as she took them to the back. When she came back we told her we could not believe how bad the food tasted. She took our check and said she was "going to do something about it" Next thing we know, the "chef" was at the table asking what was wrong with the food.....we told him we just wanted the check and this confrontation was not welcomed or wanted. He asked where the food was and then proceeded to RUN to the back to retrieve it from the trash...WHO DOES THAT!!!!! The waitress returned and we told her we did not appreciate her telling him to come over to us and to just give us the check so we could leave. We paid and heading to the door and the chef came up behind us as I was asking the hostess if they had a General Manager...he then informed us HE was the executive chef....YOU MY FRIEND ARE NOT AN EXECUTIVE CHEF!!!! you are a cook fixing items on a menu someone else created and doing a POOR job at best. Please read this....."The executive chef is the leader of a professional kitchen. Also known as a head chef or chef de cuisine, this person is in charge of all back of house activities, from menu planning and ordering, to rostering and mentoring of kitchen staff. As an executive chef, cooking is the easiest job you will have." You do NOT meet this criteria.....bottom line is the food was awful and the service was almost as bad...I would encourage anyone considering eating there to think twice...DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY AS...