IKEA Restaurant — Restaurant in Grand Prairie

Our first time in an IKEA store. The point of the visit was to try the highly recommended Swedish meatballs in their restaurant. Didn't realize IKEA is set up to be a one-way driven maze-store requiring you to walk almost the entire warehouse in order to get to the Cafe area. Of course, they offer you directions here and there for a few 'short cuts' to the Cafe. But it is still a good walking work out. So don't plan on bringing granny unless her walker has the built in seating for her to have multiple rest stops. It is an immense and amazing warehouse.

Upon entering the cafeteria style Cafe, you are afforded the option of a 'tray cart'. Which is awesome when one person cannot hold their tray. Or one person is purchasing multiple food items. There were three in our party. So we opted to use the 'tray cart'. It was very handy. One order was 8 meatballs with gravy, Mac and cheese with garlic toast, and a diet coke. Second order was meatballs with gravy, peas, mashed potatoes, garlic toast, strawberry shortcake and a delicious flavored water. Third order was Swedish meatballs with gravy, mashed potatoes, peas, chocolate mousse like pie and a water. Walking through the sitting area multiple dirty tables were noticed. Someone needs to wipe down and clean up these tables as there was a long line of people that entered to eat behind us. But no one showed up to clean the entire time we sat there eating our meals. So they get only 4 stars for service not keeping the tables clean and ready for incoming diners. There was a young lady playing the guitar. She was very entertaining but loud in such a condensed area. This was a nice unexpected touch to the atmosphere. Getting serenaded while your eat. So 5 stars for atmosphere. However due to very long walking distance forcing you to walk almost the entire warehouse to get here, I dropped it to a 4 for atmosphere.

The food was hot. They gave you plenty of each requested item. The Swedish meatballs were delicious. We would all three order them again. The mashed potatoes were nicely consistent in texture but bland, no salt, no chicken broth flavor, no seasoning. We were in agreement on that lack of taste. Next time I will bring my own salt and maybe some ranch seasoning because it did have good texture. Just had no flavoring. The peas, as well, were no salt, no butter, no pepper, no seasoning, just natural. So the mashed potatoes and peas are perfect if you are on a heart healthy no salt, no butter diet. The garlic toast was perfect and enjoyable. The chocolate dessert was very, very rich. One bite was enough for me. It was good. The strawberry shortcake was firm, light and delicious as well. We would recommend the desserts. I gave the food 4 stars. Because the only real impressive item was their Swedish meatballs.

As in a cafeteria, you are asked to dump your own plates, glasses, etc, food items, and stack your trays in the designated clean up areas before leaving the Cafe. Then it was another walk back out of the Cafe area. You can now burn those calories you just ate walking through their maze of products to find your way out of the store. So we definitely got our steps in. There is a mini grocery area to the left of the cash registers/ check out area. There we picked up a bag of frozen Swedish meatballs and various Swedish chocolates...

I'm not much for home furniture and paintings or decorations but I will say that Ikea and the people that work there have changed my mind. The Eason I never cared is because I was always in some who can sell me the first pile of used matches first to get their commission. Sadly, that sentiment never garnered a real person who listens to what is needed and most of the public is turned off to the whole experience. Ikea is not that. Everyone there wanted to help. Not "wanted" but really wanted to help me and my wife get the right info. Understand the practical application and furthermore assist with the installation to make the whole experience streamlined for us. The location is gigantic, monolithic and we shopped there for three days in a row. We kept coming back because they were there to help us each step of the way. The restaurant was nice as well. The food was great though there wasn't many options to choose from. But it's good and different. We didn't plan to eat there obviously but when we encountered their eatery we decided to just try it. The food was very well prepped for something smack dab in the middle of a massive location. Well priced and clean above all else. Very important. I'm a fan for...

Everyone was wearing masks, seating in the restaurant was limited, and people were being sat by a host upon entry.

It wasn't busy, there was no wait to be seated, and there was no line to order food.

Everything was delicious, clean, and the staff met our needs with great hospitality.

We had the Swedish Meatballs (I added 4 extra), mashed potatoes, gravy, steamed broccoli, extra lingenberries, garlic toast added, chocolate cake, and water. $11.99 total with tax and all.

Our baby loved every bite of each item, their high chairs kept our little escape artist held tight, and the staff wiped the table down for us before we sat down even though it looked pretty clean already.

We didn't use the restrooms so I cannot attest to those.

We left full and happy.

We tried to buy our toddler a bed/mattress but what we wanted was unavailable, unfortunately...but the food was super duper.

Only complaint would be that we would have preferred they had the items we wanted in stock but there are a lot of logistics issues for a lot of places so we'll have to go somewhere else for...