The Grainery — Restaurant in Plain City

Unbeknownst to us, we entered the restaurant through the wrong entrance and were rudely "greeted" by a young lady, who apparently was on some kind of ego driven head trip as a supervisor of wait staff, who barked and waved at us several times that we needed to leave and enter through some obscure side entrance where the hostess stand had been assembled. Being our first time there and given choices of where to sit (inside or out), we simply wanted to take a look before deciding, but that apparently rubbed her the wrong way. That rough start aside, we had a very nice experience. Our waitress Katie was exceptional...kind, knowledgeable, professional and the antithesis of the waitress who first "greeted" us. The brisket was good, not great (I've spent 30 yrs in Texas so I've had the best), green beans were over-cooked and tasted as if they were prepared in an excessive amount of vinegar. I've had green bean salads but, never cooked beans prepared in that manner. Not very good. The mac and cheese, although recommended, was average at best. All that was offset by an exceptional Wagyu beef burger, dessert of Oreo cheesecake, cold beverages, and attentive service. The outdoor patio was nice on a beautiful summer evening, although tables are narrow and a bit cramped for serving people on each side when food is delivered. The music from the stage was very good, and volume was such that you could carry on a nice conversation over dinner. We might return again but will be more careful not to enter through the "forbidden" front entrance and will definitely seek out to be served in Katie's area. She is a gem and one of the best things this place has...

Came here for weekend lunch recently after driving by a few weeks before. More than enough parking behind the building, an there is street parking throughout the downtown area.

From a building perspective, there is a small patio up front, a large patio in the back, and the bar area has some nice, large windows that open to the street. The bar area had four large screen TVs and a video wall - lots of sports for everyone.

Unfortunately, for me, this is where the good impression ended. We initially sat at a table, but after sitting for about 15 minutes without a server coming by (saw three of them walking around and one even brought food for the table next to us), we migrated to the bar. The bartender was very pleasant, but seemed a little frazzled (interesting when the place was less than half-full at the time). Our drinks were brought by and she took our order.

The food took a little bit to come out, and was less than average. The portions were average size, and the food came out on small metal trays with the sides in paper containers/boats. The wife's pulled pork sandwich needed to be drenched in barbecue sauce as the pork was extremely dry. My Johnny Alder was also a very dry brisket, the candied bacon wasn't, and the queso was very thin/watery. Last, my side of beans was forgotten, and when requested, it looked like it was slopped into the paper serving dish and was somewhat room temp, almost cold.

For what had promise of looking like a great place, the experience was enough to decide that we would not...

Without the atmosphere we would no be back -- TVs, music, etc. all good. The server team were nice but probably needed a bit more training. My family will give it another shot soon. Seem fine for watching sports and drinking beer but the food that the four of us had was just okay. Flavors good, just random odd things like asking for parmesan for a grilled chicken salad and it's little packets like a pizza shop, not shredded, chicken tacos came with little packs of taco sauce (looked like ketchup packs), kids meal came with salsa for $.75 (that we just tossed, did not need it) and the "upgraded" fries come in a tiny little boat and we all laughed because I counted them and there were 14 fries (for $2 upgrade over house made chips that are better than the fries). Fries were cold so maybe better when hot. We did order two fries, charged for two, but only one order came. Removed that for us at the end.

It seems the restaurant is not sure if they want to be on the higher end or on the quick service side as for $70 meal, just off.

Family and I discussed that it's rare that we ever critic a meal and we eat our four times a week or so ... this meal was just a bit odd.

Oh, I do think it's odd they just say "$xx.xx" and ask for the card. I like to see the charges. Most places with the checkout at the table show you the charges on the tablet and then...