Grove Market Restaurant & Smokehouse — Restaurant in Maryland

The Grove Market and Smoke House - Dinner Theater Mystery Revealed

Tucked in a grove of trees on the side of the road next to an RV park is the Grove Market & Smokehouse, feeling like a bit of local legend or (sub) urban folklore. The restaurant was local-family owned for a couple of decades and has changed hands into it next life. The menu rotates daily with what is best available and while small, covers an array of proteins and fish.

Long known as foodie stop on the meal train, The Grove is a kitsch-filled 50 or so seat spot evocative of a Florida Keys diner. Gravel parking, some outside seating (mostly to provide a waiting spot) belie the fine dining experience The Grove would like you to have.

The dinner drama begins at your reservation after you leave a voice mail and subsequently receive a call back to confirm. No RESY or Open Table to assist a customer. From there time slots are filled and customers can queue up if their table is not ready.

Patrons fill the main dining room (about 28 seats plus four at a counter and a rear dining area) and await the vocal delivery of the day's fare - delivered in stages of appetizer/salads and main courses. This, plus the dusty, grandma's attic décor, form the basis of the ensuing "dinner theater" along with no posted prices. A rogue ATM serves as a live prop - only cash is accepted. Our server delivered the recitation of the fare eloquently in a "telling vs selling" manner with patrons scrambling to recall the 5-6 appetizers, 2 salads and a soup before the server returned to take orders.

Our crab and corn chowder (with Smith Island crabmeat) was a well-constructed bowl with potatoes and local sweet corn served appropriately hot with an underlying hint of tarragon. Well made and smooth. Another appetizer of local clams in a wine/butter/garlic/herb broth was wonderful with its dipping bread and inspired broth but was served so hot that the delicate clam meat over cooked in their own broth before the dish could be consumed. The smokehouse element of The Grove was represented by two fish dishes - tuna and salmon - offered blended or in a separate platter with saltine crackers and dipping sauce. A classic crab dip was also recited and sounded remarkable.

Entrees on the night we dined were duck (Asian preparation), pork Osso Bucco filet mignon (bourbon sauce), rack of lamb (blueberry sauce), maple-seared scallops (with crab and risotto) and two fish dishes (halibut and grouper). Our order of the scallops was served with a cucumber salad and watermelon wedge (?) as were other entrees. The risotto appeared to be prepped earlier and cooked long enough to resemble grits more than a proper al dente risotto. The Mediterranean-sauced halibut was served with the same cucumber salad but paired with an overly mixed mashed potato side. There was a lot of product on our plates and presented a more rustic alternative than a singularly plated entrée associated with white table cloth dining.

A small but well-crafted selection of beer was offered, and the wine list was thoughtful with a variety of grapes, price points and vintners selected. Only beer and wine are offered and the locally made dessert options included pies and fruit cobblers. Price are comparable to other fine dining establishments.

As for the attraction of The Grove for foodies, this is part of the mystery. This is good food, made with local ingredients and a clever (sometimes too clever) preparation. It's better than most you would find in a number of Ocean City restaurants but the Rehoboth food scene was reprising these dishes three menus ago.

Enjoy the theater, order the food, pay in cash,...

Overall, my dinner was very good and in all honesty it was the best crab bisque I've ever had in my life. Not even close. The scallops were good, but nothing special. My wife had the steak and she said that I make a better one, but it was fine. The place is fairly expensive in comparison to local eateries, but not so much if you've eaten in Philly or NYC at some of the better restaurants.

Here's the kicker. There's something like a 2 week wait to get in here and they have some weird way of selecting who eats since there are only 8 tables. Some people have waited two years to eat here. Its good, but its not worth two weeks or two years for that matter. If you can get in there reasonably easily (try walking up) and based on my commentary below still have a desire to go its worth it, I guess, but I wouldn't kill myself to go.

Having said that, we had no reservations and just walked in. They bent over backwards to accommodate us to seat us within 15 mins since it was our first visit. To be honest, they couldn't have been nicer and more accommodating. We felt very at home....at first. Things started off well with friendly staff and owner, but as the evening wore on and our server became more comfortable with our conversations and banter she started asking kind of personal questions and remarking on our marriage and backgrounds.

My wife and I are not of the same ethnic background and so there were a barrage of questions about our education, our travels, kids, society at large and my personal favorite of telling my wife about how brave she must've been to date (and later marry) me. Clearly showing bias to one of us, but not the other. My other favorite was when she asked whether I was a professional athlete which I took as her way of asking me how else we were planning to afford the dinner...of course I had to be a millionaire because as someone who is non white how else could I afford it?? We both found the whole episode needlessly uncomfortable, unsettling and ended up cutting our evening short a bit because we didn't want to endure anymore societal/racial conversations when all we wanted was dinner (and not societal discourse).

I rate the food a 4 and the service a 2 so I averaged them for a 3 star rating. Based on my own experience unless you look like your server (who I will not name) you can expect to have a discussion about your differences and racial makeup. I don't think she meant any harm, but have no way of knowing. I just know that there are times and places for those types of discussions and that was neither the time...

It hurts me to have to say this, but as The Grove stands, I don't know if I could recommend it to a friend and trust that they would leave happy with the $100+ in cash they spent on their dinner.

I've been going to the Grove for about 15 years. It used to be as good as many Michelin Starred restaurants that I've been to. But today, after my first time back in a few years, I was a bit shocked by how it's changed since Leslie left. The Grove still has much of its quirk and charm but some of it has been "cleaned up" in a way that just isn't "The Grove". But I don't care if they made the dishes match or replaced plastic lawn chairs with real chairs despite the whimsy that they brought--I care about the food.

We started with lobster bisque and it was as good I would have expected from The Grove. Huge lobster chunks and delicious soup. The Crab Remick was equally as delicious. Again, huge lumps of crab and great flavor. One of us got the pork. It was cooked to perfection but it was somewhat ruined by the gravy which was far too thick. I'd hoped it was a mistake but a friend of mine had the same complaint from a different dish ordered not too long ago, and then again in some of the reviews here. I also thought the vegetables were well-cooked but plain and uninspired. Same for the mashed potatoes. One of us got the scallops which has been a favorite for quite some time. They were good, but not mind blowing and we were very sad to see that they are served with the sides of the day rather than the signature risotto that used to come with them. The veggies and mashed potatoes that replaced them just didn't complement the scallops the way the risotto did.

In general, the meal was good but it was so far from the stellar food that we used to get there. I understand everything can't stay the same when management/ownership change, but when it was so close to perfection before, it's a lot to live up to and this time it...