The Colonial Grille — Restaurant in Gardner

We were a party of 8, though I will only be writing on behalf of two of us. The opened at 4. We were arrived early, and waiting in the sitting area outside the Grille until the remainder of our party arrived. We were the first 8 people in the restaurant, with a group of 3 immediately behind us. The greeting staff member was exceptionally friendly, having even offered to let us enter shortly before opening time. Unfortunately, our service was painfully slow, especially considering the lack of other patrons. This includes everything from the original drink order, all the way up through the desert order. On to the food!: Jennie had a Peach Sangria & I had a Summer Fever (w/ Hendrick’s). Both were very good. We opted for the Fried Calamari appetizer. We both found it to be fairly good, but definitely too oily. It came with an aioli. We wished we had asked for some marinara with it. I opted for the Steak Tip with peppers/onions, sweet potato fries, and rice pilaf. The steak tips & veggies were cooked to perfection with phenomenal flavor! The rice pilaf was your typical rice pilaf… nothing special. The sweet potato fries were cook to perfection, unfortunately I there was far too much salt on them… almost making them inedible. Jennie chose the pan seared scallops, which came on a bed of risotto. This dish came with 5, rather small, scallops. They were quite flavorful. The risotto may as well have been a bed of salt. The risotto was absolutely inedible due to the salt. It looks good, but neither of us could bear to eat more than two bites of it. Another member of our party had the onion rings. They looked great, portion was great, but they were heavy on the grease, and also were too heavily salted for anyone to eat. For desert, I ordered the lava cake with ice cream and Jennie ordered the cheese cake with strawberries. We both found our desert to be quite good. I did find it odd that the lava cake was served with a fork rather than a spoon. Both I and another party member had to ask for spoons because the forks just couldn’t pick up the lava!

Having not been to the Colonial Grille in years I was looking rather forward to it. For what you get for your money, it’s really a toss-up if it’s worth it. I doubt...

Just left the place after nobody waited on us. It was interesting, after being seated, we watched every table around us get help. They were either getting their food or getting their tab, etc. I watched as a few employees walk right past us multiple times. No one said a word. Finally a person approached us and asked if we had been helped. We said no and she said she’d walked by us a couple of times and didn’t say anything. Kudos to this employee for at least acknowledging us and telling us they’d go find out what was happening. After they walked away my partner and I decided to leave. We’d been here several times before and though the service was always on the slower side, at least we existed. We didn’t seem to exist today.

To make things even better, as we walked by the front, the same person apologized to us and asked if we wanted her to get someone. We were left wondering why she was asking since she had just finished telling us she was finding out what was happening.

Pretty...

Went here for the Thanksgiving lunch buffet last week. Despite the place being really cold inside we had a great experience!

It was top notch food! We had a reservation and when we were seated they did drink orders and explained what the buffet actually had.

They had a variety of main and side dishes. There was a giant spread of very fresh fruit and veggies with dips sauces. They also had a nice caprese salad as well as a green salad section. The rolls were even amazing! There was a cranberry butter or butter pecan butter to go with them.

At the end our table was given a take home bag with a sandwich for each party member. The cranberry mayo they give you is good stuff.

Dessert was brought to the table. I tried the apple pie and everyone else got the pumpkin cheese cake which I wish I had done now. The apple pie was good but it was just...