Northwest Grille — Restaurant in Gainesville

We eat here pretty often, in fact, it's my sister favorite place to go. Typically we are happy and enjoy everything but yesterday was a different experience.

The first thing was the waitress. She seemed to argue over 1 side plus coleslaw. Was pretty forcefull regarding coleslaw was a mandatory side. We don't like coleslaw and always substitute the slaw. It was just forcefull for no reason. She was set on making the point it's one side plus slaw. It really just set the tone.

The second thing was the appetizer plates. Mine was dirty with old dry food crusted on from the previous service. Just gross. The poor lighting made it hard to see. I saw the dirty plate after I added my appetizer. I am happy I saw it and skipped eating off that plate. At that point, we should have left but my sister was set to stay. The waitress brought me a new plate but never offered to replace the appetizer that was added onto the dirty plate.

The topping on the cake was the sick stomach as a parting gift. Apparently the food was bad. It tasted good as usual but mine and my sisters food ended up proving bad. We ordered the same exact main, steak with gargandola. The other two in the party had other items and liked their food with no issue in fact the chicken dish one had was superb. The fact is that within 1 hour after eating the steak dish both were sick. Later, I gave my leftovers to my spouse at home and like clockwork he too was sick about 45 minutes after. I was hoping my stomach issue wasn't the food but I was wrong. The other two in our party were fine and never got sick. That is how we know it was our specific mains as it is the only food in common and occurred 45 to 1 hour after eating. Steak with gargandola - a dinner item they allow to be ordered at lunch. On a side note, my steak was order medium rare and came out very rare almost raw so I didn't eat that much either - still made me super sick. I originally planned to recook at home later. Again, we didn't know we were gonna get sick and after we did get sick we were not sure it was actually the food. It tasted good. However, we figured it out after my spouse (who didnt eat with us) ate my leftovers later. He too had the same reaction and got sick about 45 minutes later.

I say all this to say, as a long time customer that routinely drops over 100 bucks when we go, I won't be back. An attitude, dirty plate and stomach issues were enough gifts for the day.

Do better...

We were really looking forward to eating here but unfortunately we didn't have a good experience. First off, your hostess needs to learn to use an outside voice when she comes out to call people. She told us it would be 25-30 minutes and that's how long we waited, which was fine. Once we got seated, it took our waitress over 10 minutes before she came over for our drink order. I can't tell you who she was because she didn't introduce herself. The drinks and bread came out timely and she took our order. Our app also came out timely. But after that is where the wheel fell off the wagon. I ordered a steak with broccoli and my husband ordered steak & shrimp. Pretty quick to prepare, right? Well we waited. And waited. And waited. The waitress came over and told us we were behind a '20 top' and that's what was taking so long. However, all the people around us that were seated after us were getting their food. She came back over and said it was about to come out and offered us a free dessert. Which was nice but we didn't want dessert we just wanted our food. After it crept past an hour after being seated, hadn't seen our waitress in quite a while, smelling the bleach from someone behind us cleaning tables, we left on the table enough money to pay for my glass of wine and our app and left without ever getting our food. We were hoping to find a great place in Gainesville that had a more mature clientele, instead of the typical college crowd but Northwest Grille won't...

My wife and I come here often, especially when entertaining out of town guests. They have a great selection of entrees, appetizers, lunch and dinner specials. I think their sirloin steak is the best in town, I say that because it's not my favorite cut of beef. The burgers are also delicious and a fantastic value. Northwest Grille's biggest strengths are value, consistency, and service! I can't remember having a meal there that was anything less than great. There's only been a few servers that I didn't care for in the decade or more that we've been coming to NW Grille. I have never had a bad meal here - NEVER! I've tried specials that contained ingredients I'd normally avoid only to be pleasantly surprised. NWG has expanded my culinary vocabulary and removed my fears of trying new things!

The bar: The bartenders pours are part of the great value NWG offerings. They have a great selection of wines, beers including local crafted beer, and a full liquor bar. My wife loves the Martini menus and the new specials they create.

I belonged to a group that held monthly meetings in the back room used for such occasioms and again their consistency shined through even with the two members of the group were impossible to please! That said, I definitely recommend them for groups, but you should absolutely make reservations if your group needs some privacy and your group is larger...