The Winchester — Restaurant in Grand Rapids

A local favorite, as we learned after asking, well, locals, The Winchester was a surprising “miss” for us out-of-towners.

In search of Michigan’s secret food, the Olive Burger, we asked some friendly Grand Rapidians of their choice. Sadly we found that we were about 20 years too late to try the true olive burger from Mr. Fables and about 72 miles away from the true olive burger home, Lansing Michigan. However, those we chatted with suggested a familiar post-work hangout called The Winchester. Excited to try this interesting burger, we drove down “Wealthy St” (... yes that is the street it’s on).

Our order consisted of olive burgers, crispy brussels, and the Mediterranean platter.

The olive burgers - which was both voted by locals and online blogs as a great representation of the type - was, average? We found out that the truth behind the olive burger was the sauce - a white but highly savory sauce that gains its wings from the olive’s complex profile blessing. Together with the standard ingredients of America’s burger, it definitely makes for a delicious burger. Though I might have opted for a less greasy version. I believe I need to test more olive burgers to truly understand this mysterious type.

What really drove our rating down was the complete and utter demolition of all that is green and healthy in brussel sprouts. The sprouts were black and crispy from the oil and lemon it was fried in, but the amount of oil remaining made me question how full the pan was with oil before the sprouts were added. Seriously, I held up a sprout and it dripped oil. For some, a oil and crispy brussel sounds tempting, but let me stop you there. Not only did Niagara Falls do a number of oil volumes, but the oil was severely burnt. The final taste was crispy/soggy burnt oil with a hint of what is left of the brussel sprouts nutrients with a hint of a lemon.

The Mediterranean plate had equally oiled peppers with two hummus dips and pickled onion. Pretty standard, but if Winchester had managed to mess up hummus, this would have turned into a one star...

My wife and I came up to G.R. for a few days after not visiting for a few years and we wanted to try something new. I did a Google Maps search for "gastro pub" and we settled on the The Winchester - SO glad we did!

We started with the hummus platter appetizer that had a delicious garlic hummus, four perfectly spiced and perfectly fried falafel balls (I'm not the biggest fan of falafel but this was incredible!), some pickled red onion and cucumber slices, some lightly-spiced cauliflower bits and feta cheese crumbles, and a healthy portion of sesame crackers for dipping. If you're a fan of hummus platters, definitely give this one a shot!

For the mains, I had the Naan club (smoked turkey, ham, and bacon on the softest Naan around with arugula and Chipotle aioli - heavenly!) with some excellent salt and pepper kettle chips. My wife had the "burger of the week" - two beef patties perfectly seasoned and cooked, caramelized onions, pepper jack cheese, avocado spread, and I think it also had the Chipotle aioli. Simply outstanding burger!

We both skipped alcohol and we both ordered iced tea - even the tea was excellent! Perfectly brewed, strong, with a nice flavor.

I'm terrible with names so I don't remember our server's name but she was friendly, attentive, and prompt - everything you would want in a server!

We sat outside on a picnic table on a beautiful night with a nice breeze so I cannot comment on the atmosphere inside the building but the outside dining area was set up nicely with plenty of room between all of the tables.

In summary, The Winchester is an absolute GEM of a restaurant and the next time we are in G.R., we will definitely...

I suggested to some friends that we check out The Winchester, because I had been there before and enjoyed it. I would give the food 5/5!! Great food, great spot and the outdoor area is amazing. However our service was horrendous. I’ve had bad service before at other restaurants but never take it to heart. I don’t remember the girls name but she was incredibly rude from the beginning. However fast forward, me and 2 others ordered drinks, and she brought out the wrong drink for one of them… no big deal. We then politely asked to have the correct drink brought out instead, and the server sat there and decided to argue about what she heard that we ordered and also never apologized about the miscommunication. Again no big deal, we gave her the incorrect drink to take off our table. After the meal was finished, we got our checks and the incorrect drink was on the tab which was $8… no biggie, we just asked to have it taken off because we never actually ordered it or drank any of it (it was a Bloody Mary and our friend is super allergic to gluten and literally could not drink it). The server again sat there and argued with us about the drink that we ‘ordered’ for way too long. I know how serving jobs work, so I gently offered that we would ‘still give her a good tip if the drink was taken off’ but again she snapped back with ‘I don’t care about your money’ on top of being rude the entire time we were there . She was much too confrontational to be working any type of customer service industry job. There’s a big difference between mediocre service and BAD service. This server really missed the mark on customer service, I probably won’t...