Ground Round Grill & Bar-Grand Forks, ND — Restaurant in Grand Forks

My experience with Ground Round has been a continuous decline in quality along with a sharp increase in cost.

About eight years ago, I was very impressed with the restaurant. They had a variety of sandwiches and other entrees you wouldn't find at other restaurants in town, and they had a comfortable price point. One sandwich in particular I would get was 13.99, and came with a full bowl of soup and two sides.

That sandwich no longer exists. Not only that, a variety of meals I enjoyed are no longer available. I can think of four, but there might be more as it's been awhile. Every time you come in, more things are shuffled off the menu for more generic variants. Now there isn't anything available I couldn't get elsewhere -- and for a far better price!

As a point of comparison, let's look at steak. You can currently get an 8oz. Sirloin steak with two sides for a whopping $21.99. By comparison, if you go to Texas Roadhouse, you can get an 8oz. Sirloin with two sides (in my opinion, of better quality) for $13.99. Heck, you could get a 16oz. Sirloin for $20.99! You can do similar cost comparisons to whatever other restaurants you like, Ground Round is consistently more expensive than all but the most expensive restaurants in town, with no quality or uniqueness to back it up.

Well, perhaps quality and price point are everything. Maybe they've increased the portion size of meals to make up for it... or not. They've universally shrunk. To get a similarly cut and made sandwich as eight years ago, before holding it in one hand was genuinely a struggle, but now I can comfortably hold both halves at once. The size is comparable to the kind of grilled cheese they made in middle school. Similarly, the bowl of soup has been reduced to a cup -- a half full one, at that. Even side dishes like fries which have a low cost for the restaurant have shrunk in serving size, currently making up less than a third of the plate.

It's been a constant spiral downwards in quality and quantity with massive price jumps even compared to other businesses. I'm convinced the only reason they're still in business is an outside chef who comes in to cook Chinese 3 days a week. On the off chance you go here and find something you do like, it'll be gone or made worse within a year. Would...

This was my second time eating at Ground Round since about a year ago prior. I didn't like the burger then, but I believe in benefit of the doubt. So I tried again. This time I dined in with my adult son. The burgers I steered clear of because of my last encounter, figuring that I'd best try a different dish. So, I tried the onion soup, salad and my son had a slab of ribs with fries. Now I know your thinking, you can't go wrong there; right? First we were given pop corn with our glass of water while we waited for the food. The pop corn was so stale that they no longer had a crunch to them. So I was really was praying that the food would make up for that disappointment. Second came both our salads, which came with literally 4 croutons, so we asked for more. Shortly after came the meals. My onion soup smelled good, and my sons rib meal looked very delicious. After digging into our meals, we soon realized we had another disappointment with Ground Round. The onion soup had too much cheese on top and bread at the bottom. I'm a huge fan of bread, but with the overwhelming of the two left no soup. As I look over at my son, seeing he barely touched his ribs and the look of frustration on his face. He asks me you want to try it mom? I said what's wrong with your meal? He replied "it looks like there's sauce on it , right". I replied "yes". He then responds " its dry and with no barbecue sauce and the waitress just dropped our dishes and didn't ask if we needed anything else before she walked away". I realized he was correct. I tried the rib while he waited for the waitress to be in sight again. The rib was dry (over cooked and without sauce). We waited so long for our waitress, we' be happy to see any waiter/waitress at this point. Finally we had enough let downs and disappointment for one night In one place. When the waitress finally came, we called it at night, leaving more hungry then when we first walked through there door. I don't believe I will waste anymore money or time here again. BUT AGAIN, I believe in benefit of doubt. No one can be this...

One star is all it's getting, and that's because it's not the servers' fault the food is absolutely bland as heck! I had the sirloin, but I wanted the chopped steak, which they were already out of at 6 pm on a Tuesday night. Very disappointed in the super noisy atmosphere. My husband and I are not exceptionally tall, but we (he's 6'2" and I'm 5'11" & we both had to duck to miss hitting our heads on tvs in the middle of the restaurant. The tvs really needed to either be mounted differently or put in another spot. It was super awkward to walk around as we had to walk into other people's dining spaces. When we ordered the server brought us the saltiest popcorn I've ever had, it was not good. Then, when I ordered the chopped steak, which has always been my favorite at the Ground Round,she tells me the kitchen forgot to take enough out of the freezer this morning. So I ordered the sirloin with so-called fresh veggies & red mash potatoes. My husband had the chicken chimichanga. My veggies were a frozen veggie mix, my mashed potatoes had way too much pepper on them, & you could tell my veggies just came out of the microwave. I don't believe the steak had any seasoning on it whatsoever. I never add salt & pepper to my food, I had to add both 2x to my steak for flavor. The mash potatoes were salvagable with butter, which helped tone done the over peppering. My husband couldn't finish his chimi because it was so bland. When we went to check out, the server checked us out right at our table, which is usually very convenient. But her device was so duct taped together that the debit card couldn't be swiped through it any longer. If the company won't invest in some new devices, what does that say about how they feel about their business? I don't think i will ever eat at a Ground...