The Wharf — Restaurant in Garden Grove

Came to eat here July 15th 2025, upon entering the establishment which seemed to have a pool league going on, already felt rather awkward as 6 of us came in to dine on what we were hoping to be a good meal at about 9:45pm. Sadly, that was not going to be the case. We sadly were not seated by someone at the door as we wondered all the way to the back of the restaurant and saw no staff available. Seems we had just missed the hostess. A server followed up behind us and sat us. We looked over the menu rather eager to see what The Wharf was going to have in store. We placed our order 2 crawfish mac n cheese, a pork belly bacon burger, naan cheese pizza, wings, chicken Sandwich, and a noodle dish. We were served in a very staggered method, none of the food came out at the same time which left alot of us waiting for each others meals to make it to the table before we could start eating. The presentation of these dishes was just not there. Nothing really stood out to you as actually "cajun" let alone the flavors. Nothing tasted cajun even in the slightest. The mac n cheese was alright, there is alot of cheese in there, but zero seasoning. The chicken sandwich somehow had tartar sauce on it? What is even that? The burger didnt come with its listed bacon and about 15 minutes into us getting the burger a magical bowl of alfredo shrimp shows up at our table for the burger. What is even this? Im really not sure what this shrimp is about but whatever. We returned the chicken sandwich to the kitchen. The dinor really wasnt interested and sadly had to spit the bite he took into a napkin. The naan pizza....... So ive seen quite a few pizzas in my day, but this one brought me back to the days of leftover detention pizza. It was sloppy. Bland. And should not be called pizza by any stretch of the imagination. This was something out of pizza nightmares. Ill leave it at that. The chicken wings... These were actually not bad. But its really really hard to mess up a chicken wing. The noodle dish. None of us could identify the meat used in whatever this was. Looked like lo mein. Cant say too much about this. But again not a good presentation. After reading a few of the reviews in the past 9 months it seems this place was doing pretty good before so something must have happened. Something needs to be done in that kitchen because the 230 dollar bill we paid wasnt worth what we were served and could have significantly made better at our own houses. We left more than 3/4 of our food on the plates and did not want to go boxes. That should say something. We know it was close to the kitchen closing time but we called before to make sure they wanted the later business. And what we got was a memory we are gunna have to hold on to of a very bad dining experience. Cant say ill ever be coming back to this place. Fix your kitchen. And hire someone that cares. Lastly, the music situation. Ive never gone to a restaurant and dined in silence. Not sure what was going on here but the music situation needs some help also. You could hear a pin drop in here if you listened close enough and passed the...

UPDATE: (Oct. 2023+) It's under new management & the happy hour has been hacked at to less items & frequency. My favorite fish & fries are no longer on the list. 😭

Since Oct. I've given it about 3 tries & even suggested a friend to "enjoy" the food. Coincidentally each time something wrong happened with the order; there was a late/forgotten order, cold food, little burned...or the opposite.

The manager tried to compensate us with redo-ing the order or a discount on the food. Good efforts by management, but it's not worth the trouble that I might encounter, ... ESPECIALLY with No fish & chips on the happy hour to upgrade to garlic & parmesan fries. The fries itself were the only good & consistent item from both managements.

At least parking is still easy & across the street behind the buildings for all of the establishments on that street.

5 to 2 star review, update.

The Happy Hour has amazing choices! Oysters for $2!?!!! Sunday has all day happy hour. I like places with multiple happy hours. [Refer to image]

The food comes out quickly & in a good portion. The music choice is chill too. Nothing obnoxious. (Lol yeah, I know it's subjective.) The servers are more genuine with their approach & don't have that giddy customer service inflection.

If u like garlic & parmesan on ur fries, this place will not disappoint; it will astound. I gleefully chuckled cuz most places sprinkle; The Warf will top it with scoopSSS.

There is PLENTY OF SEATING, so there is rarely a wait time. We found this place near a local theater that we can have drinks prior to the performance in WALKING DISTANCE.

Next time, I'll try...

This place is excellent for food--once you can get seated. There needs to be a better system set in place or the workers need to be trained better for efficiency...or they just need to hire more workers. I have been here many times. The last time, I had called and made a reservation. When I arrived, the restaurant wasn't even half full but we ended up waiting over 20 minutes last our reservation time to be seated. I love the food, though. I love that they have space for large parties as well as small intimate ones. Sometimes food takes a long time to make. If that is the case, the servers need to inform the customer of that. One of the items we ordered was a sushi roll--one sushi roll. 30 minutes later, we were still waiting. Thinking that they had forgotten, we reminded them. The server went to check and then came back and said they were cooking a new batch of sushi rice. It was near closing. They could have just told us that they would need to make new rice which would take awhile or give us the option to not order it because of how late it was in the evening. Sometimes getting the servers to bring us the bill or even pick up our payment took a long time. This doesn't take away from the quality of the food, though. The food is excellent and they have...