Grins Restaurant — Restaurant in San Marcos

Most recent visit: We just went here this past Sunday. I had the chicken fried chicken which is normally one of my favorites at Grins. The portions on my entire meal were Much less, not just a little less than normal... that includes the chicken and tbe 2 sides. Very irritating at the very least. Its all about expectations and I was very disappointed. The small portion chicken was good but the mashed potato side with gravy were way off the usual. One could use both as mortar if laying bricks or concrete blocks. I want to know, should I have complained right away? maybe I should have returned the plate to the kitchen and switched the order to a hamburger. I calculated though that in doing so I may have been refused which would have ticked me off to such an extent that I would have gotten up and walked out the door.--not what one wants to do on a Sunday... Prior Visits: My family and I have now been to this restaurant 4-5 times. The food and the service has always been very good. I would rate the food nearer 4.5 if I could. The hamburgers are the best in San Marcos-- bar none. The chicken fried chicken & steak are also great and have been tender and moist... very tasty and have exceeded our expectations. The sides that we've tried have been good. The fries ? ... they're okay but it would be nice to see them offer more of a homemade type of potato chip as they would complement many of their burgers and other entres better than having just average fries. (You can forego the soups as they are the weakest item on the menu). We are looking forward to exploring more of the menu in our future visits. 😉 Note that the generous portions along with the quality and taste of the food at the $price = one of the best values around -- whether...

I have lived in San Marcos for a long time and this was my first experience at Grins. We had a rather large party of between 20 to 30 people for a birthday party. My daughter chose Grins because they assured her they could handle that many people and her family likes the restaurant. We were seated at approximately 7:30 and the waitress took everyone's food order shortly after that. It went downhill from there. Everyone should have received their food at about the same time and it took them 2 hours to finally get everyone served. Some people never got their food at all and several people at our table alone got shorted on some of their food. Actually I was very surprised the waitress did as well as she did considered she had no help other than a few plates of food being delivered to the tables. She even had to bus the tables! And we all observed AT LEAST 5 other wait people just standing around doing nothing. About the food it arrived barely warm which leads me to believe it sat under the warming lamps for quite a while and the restaurant did not even have many customers which accounts for all the staff standing around doing nothing. I wonder why the manager didn't rectify the situation. Just because no one complained it doesn't excuse him or her from monitoring what goes on in their restaurant. Most of the people at the party are long time residents of San Marcos and not students who will disappear from San Marcos when they graduate. I seriously doubt anyone in our party will use Grins for large groups again and some may never eat their again. Not a...

To start off the “award winning chips and salsa” was descent except for the stale chips.

Simple hamburger turned into a not so comfortable feeling as it was sent back the first time due to having mustard and was ordered without. Only to come back to the table with a difference bottom bun and a half way attempt to wipe off the mustard on the meat clearly with mustard still on the bacon and patty and the tomato and quac completely taken out of the equation. Sent back a second time to “try again” to add the tomato and quac back to the burger and actually serve me a burger without mustard. For the third try to make it back to the table where they clearly were frustrated enough to sloppily over due the miracle whip as well as the quac to no doubt cover up the yet still remaining mustard on the patty that they threw back on the grill to try and cook off the remaining mustard only to accomplish burning the burger.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the cook at this point must have “accidentally dropped it on the floor” and no telling what else before sending back to the table as there was hair in the food. Do better, if you can’t custom order a burger then put the fixings on the side or get it right the first two try’s. If I could give it a...