Gravity Taphouse Grille — Restaurant in Grand Rapids

I’ll start out by saying that I was so hopeful for this place because of the amazing location. I grew up in the area and we’ve needed a restaurant with a good beer selection for awhile. However, the multiple experiences I’ve had here have all been extremely disappointing and though I’m never one to take the time to leave reviews - my continuous bad experiences have made it overdue.

My first visit was when Gravity first opened in 2014 - we arrived around 8:30 on a Sunday (they close at 10:00). The hostess immediately made us feel uncomfortable by stating to us that we needed to be aware that they close at 10. Terrible customer service right off the bat, since we easily had an hour and a half before they closed? My mother took offense to this and asked if that meant we should dine elsewhere. The hostess sighed and reluctantly sat us. We waited for at least 15 minutes until a server came over to greet us and take our drink order - keep in mind that this was a Sunday evening, so we were one of only a few tables. The food ended up being very tasteless and mediocre, not to mention expensive. We all left disappointed. I chalked this up to them being a newly opened restaurant and let it go.

My most recent experience was about a month ago - I wanted to give them another chance since it’d been so long since my last experience there. This again was on a Sunday evening around 8:00. We were sat on the patio so we were able to walk through the restaurant to see how many other tables were there; it was just us and two other groups. We were sat without menus and again, it was a solid 15 minutes until our server came over to greet us. The waiter slammed drink menus on our table and bluntly asked what we wanted. Since we had just received these drink menus, we said we needed to look over the beers and the waiter seemed very annoyed. I asked him about the tater tot appetizer and if they were vegan (sometimes they’re sprinkled in cheese). He replied extremely rude and said, “uh, they’re fried potatoes?” - needless to say, that response bothered everyone at the table. We ended up ordering them and they came out FROZEN - no joke. Literal ice in the centers of them, and this is one of their “specialties” on the menu too! We also ordered broccolini as a side dish and were brought out three uncooked, unflavored stems of broccoli. The other couple whom we were dining with decided not to order anything at all at that point because they were so turned off. After this terrible dining experience, you’d think they’d send a manager over to check on us, take the frozen appetizer off our bill, etc? We received absolutely nothing; no apologies or anything.

Don’t waste your time or money here. It’s extremely overpriced, you’ll leave disappointed and there’s plenty of other amazing restaurants/bars that deserve your business...

Symphony of savory flavors. The burger was great.

Smash Burger - $16: A symphony of savor. There were great and slightly complex flavors going on. It was rich in flavor with an emphasis of garlic and other flavors to dance around that.

I’m going to have to call them out on the “smash burger” bit, though. It is more of a hybrid smash burger since it is thicker and cannot truly claim the full caramelizing flavors that come with the thinner true “smash burger.” The 4 oz patties were “smashed” to medium thickness, definitely juicy, high quality, and delicious nonetheless.

The toppings were really what brought the burger together. The garlic aioli was superb, savory, and slightly messy. The bacon was fabulous, medium thickness, and stuck out the sides a bit. The cheese was perfect, melted throughout, and quality. The caramelized onions are usually not my favorite way to go with a burger, but the way they did it was especially fitting for this particular burger and caramelized right. The bun was especially fitting with the onion flavoring.

Though the whole thing was quite complex, it was symphonically so.

Fries - $2 extra: Great! Medium cut, battered, hot to the end, perfectly cooked, and great seasoning. A bit salty for my taste, but I complain about that a lot.

Loaded Tots - $16: My wife enjoyed this one previously and she was not disappointed. It is a theme here. The flavors were full and wow. My wife particularly enjoyed the three cheeses. The bacon and scallions were good. The real powerful player was the garlic aioli, though.

Brisket: I had the brisket a couple of years ago and it was great.

Service: It took 25 minutes to get the burger, but it was busy and it might have been because of my wife’s loaded tots taking longer to cook. She was very attentive, pleasant, and helpful, but gave us the right amount of space. Our order and bill was correct. Though it was fairly busy, they had a well-oiled machine-like operation and everything was operating smoothly.

Atmosphere: Clean, organized, and professional. There were booths, tables and chairs, a bar, and outdoor seating. Definitely a darker tone with wood flooring. There was music playing VERY faintly (at the bar?) and the acoustics were quieter. The bathroom was clean, but the water was high pressure and splashed a lot.

Conclusion: I would recommend their burger (or anything they have) if you like a LOT of flavor. It is a tad more expensive, but definitely fair prices for the quality and experience.

Visited on a...

I really hate to leave reviews like this, but I feel like I need to warn people because my experience here was very disappointing. Was staying at the hotel next door with some friends and decided to come here for lunch.

First of all, the Place wasn’t busy when we arrived, but it took nearly an hour for our food to get there after ordering. Just as we were considering walking out, our food finally arrived.

My partner and I both ordered the spicy crispy chicken sandwich, which sounded promising enough, but was a huge letdown.

Basically, my sandwich barely had anything on it. Hardly any “jam” at all, and what was there tasted more like spicy FLAVOR as opposed to being actually spicy. The vegetables were practically nonexistent - the tomato was cut paper thin and there was hardly any lettuce that I noticed. When we left, we both remembered that there was supposed to be pimento cheese on it. We didn’t taste a single bite of pimento on there and think they forgot. If it was there, it was practically nonexistent. Fried jalapeño coins had no flavor and were just extra crunchy bits.

Not to mention, the chicken itself was mostly just crunchy breading, and the meat itself (what was there) tasted dry and flat.

The fries were good and crispy, but when the fries have more flavor than the sandwich, you KNOW you’re in trouble.

So if they can’t get something basic like a chicken sandwich right, how can I trust them to do anything else?

Our server did not come around very much, and seemed very overwhelmed when we did interact. The server did tell us to let them know if we needed anything or if something wasn’t tasting right, but since the server seemed overwhelmed, we didn’t bother. It seemed to be a really big section for one person to handle, but I don’t work there so I don’t know how big each section is divided by.

So all in all, this is basically just a glorified, overpriced Applebee’s type place, and I basically paid a $20 lesson to learn not to come back.

Save your money and your time. There are way better...