Navarro's Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Springfield Township

Ate at Navarro’s for the first time today. Awful is the only word for it. Pay attention to the one-star reviews here because they are all true. Stay away.

French onion soup was tasteless except for the crazy amount of salt they poured into it. The menu claims they use “gruyere cheese*” but I know mozzarella when I taste it. Okay fine -- mozz is cheap, melts nice and can be tasty, but they didn’t even use a broiler or a butane torch to brown the cheese a bit, 30 seconds of effort which would have at least helped the cheese to have flavor. Two bites and I pushed it away. Honestly the second bite was just because I couldn't believe the first one.

Burger was menu-touted as made with their “signature blend*” of meat. What a joke. Turned out it was just a typical frozen pre-formed hocky puck burger cooked to death. Again a survivable situation, but it was over-cooked, dunked in salt and tasteless. Kind of like the soup. Hmm. And I like me some salty fries but these were ridiculous. Managed to eat half of my plate and then gave up. And I never give up on fries.

Wife ordered the “pulled pork*” sandwich. It was not pulled pork at all. It was chunks of pork broiled until dried out to the texture of a Doc Martens boot. No sauce to come the rescue, so you’re on your own. If they have been at least somewhat juicy/saucy you could still have a tasty sandwich in your hand and no one would care that they lied about it being “pulled” meat. Instead it was so dry and nasty my wife gave up after one bite. She finished my soup because it was at least it was moist. My own bite of her sammy confirmed she made the only reasonable choice. I insisted they comp us that dish for false representation in the menu description, and they did. Big deal, just don’t lie in the first place.

(* Marks the outright lies we encountered on their menu. Three out of a lunch for two. Gimme a break.)

Prices were okay, service was okay. But the kitchen staff needs to be purged. They obviously don’t care, can’t cook, and seem to think the answer to every question is salt -- and believe me, I love salt but it was far too heavy on everything.

Look, we’re not urban foodies breezing through town and writing negative reviews for the smarty pants fun of it before jumping into our Tesla and driving back to Pittsburgh. We’re locals who would have been happy to return if there had been anything at all on our plates to encourage us to come back. Just one honest frigging thing to eat that was edible.

We arrived for a late lunch and we were a bit tired, a bit cold, and a bit starving for some average food decently cooked. The bar was low. It would have taken almost zero effort to satisfy our craving for hot food on a cold winter day. Instead we wish we had gone to Wendy’s just across the street; better food for a small fraction of the price.

So no, just no, we’re...

My wife and I are tired of the same old-same old fast food restaurants. Since many of the one of a kind restaurants took a big hit during the COVID lockdowns and many ended up closing, we try to frequent them when an opportunity arises. Such was the case while in the Grove City area. Having never eaten here before my wife did a quick check of reviews of the restaurants in the area and we decided to try Navarro's. The outside of the building is very attractive and inviting as is the inside decor. There were very few people eating when we arrived as it was a little earlier than when we normally eat our evening meal. We were seated right away, but it was a while before our food server approached us for our drink orders. But that gave us time to check out the menu. It took us a while to decide what to order as we try to eat healthier and avoid fried foods. I ordered their fried green tomatoes for an appetitizer which turned out to be coated with a peppery breading and the tomatoes themselves were barely cooked. My wife wanted just water to drink and I order a Coors Lite. The water was brought quickly but it was a few minutes before I got my beer which our food server apologized for the wait. When she brought my beer she apologized for the wait for our appetitizer. There were 8 slices which was more than enough for 2 people. Our food server then returned to apologize for the wait for our food order. As she was apologizing another food server brought our food out. Both of our meals were very good, tasty and hot. I also tried their lobster mac and cheese which I found to be quite good. But there was an up charge I guess because of the few small chunks of lobster. After finishing our meals we received our check. It was higher than I expected but we did get an appetitizer and I got the mac and cheese and a beer. Was it worth the the price we were charged? Let's say we'll probably try some of the other restaurants in the area...

The restaurant itself is beautiful. They spared no expense on making it a comfortable place to dine.

Unfortunately the food did not compare.

Ordered wings to start, and they came out cold. When I informed the waitress; they explained that they precook the wings in the oven in the morning then drop them in the fryer for a minute to warm them up and must not have left them down long enough. Please tell me that this is not how they prepare wings... they took the wings back to the kitchen and when they came back it was clear that they took the same wings which were coated in sauce and threw them back in the fryer. This caused them to come back to us burnt to a black crisp on the outside.

Next we ordered the lobster bisque... that too came out ice cold, and from the little bit I let hit my lips, reminded me of something that was probably store bought in a freezer.

For our main course we got the house burger and fries. Although they were cooked to temp, it literally had zero flavor. The hand cut fries were the same. I never add salt to my food at a restaurant, but in this case I had to, to trick my brain that I wasn't chewing on air. Overall, very disappointed with the food.

Again, the restaurant ambiance spared no detail, I think the owner now needs to put that same attention to detail in the food.

The staff was very friendly and appologetic, and removed the wings and soup from our bill, which was appretiated. But I fear this is a common occurrence for them as I heard two other servers bringing food into the kitchen and could hear them explaining to the cook/chef that the order was incorrect (for other customers).

Unfortunately I don't think I'll return, but wish them the best in turning...