Grillsmith - Wesley Chapel — Restaurant in Wesley Chapel

If your heart is set on breakfast or brunch, this is NOT your place! Go to an establishment where they specialize in breakfast or brunch. At Grillsmith, brunch seems to be more of an after thought. They’re not putting much effort in here.

Let me tell you what I mean…

The portions here are teeny tiny. My friend ordered the waffle plate. It was a round waffle that came with 2 gigantic, ice-cream-scoop-sized helpings of flavored butter. But her plate just bare and the waffle was cold —- so cold, in fact, that I never saw any of that butter melt.

Craving a hot, crispy waffle for brunch … perhaps with a generous helping of warm, maple syrup or a pretty fruit arrangement on the side? Again, go elsewhere.

And then there was my plate, which was even more dismal to behold…

I ordered the southwest egg scramble, which promised scrambled eggs mixed with veggies and AVOCADO, and then a side of meat. The bacon was cooked well and quite tasty to be fair.

However, when I read the menu description of this item, I envisioned a large, cozy bowl of eggs, veggies and avocado with ample space to mix in their homemade salsa. I also pictured the plate/bowl arriving piping hot. Nope, none of that.

Here’s what I got instead…

First off, the avocado inside the dish turned out to be 1/2 of a small, diced avocado. Ok, fine so far. But then the avocado itself was fully hardened and unripe. It was inedible, to be sure. Usually, avocado would be my favorite part of an egg scramble. Not so here

My friend almost ordered the avocado toast dish and for her sake, I am glad that she did not. But I digress. Back to my southwest scrambled egg dish…

A miniature-sized, oval skillet with the eggs packed tightly inside was placed atop a large, wood cutting board. Most of the cutting board was empty space. Nothing about the arrangement of the food lent to the dish retaining any amount of heat, and it arrived near-cold to begin with.

The onions and bell peppers were scarcely to be found anywhere in that small dish, and the ones that were there were finely diced. I personally would prefer larger, rough chopped veggies for an egg scramble, but that’s just me.

A few of strips of bacon were laid onto the board, along with an ever-so-tiny, half-full ramekin of salsa. The green salsa was super tasty, by the way.

There were a few flour tortillas also placed onto the board, unwrapped. As you might imagine, they arrived cold.

If my plate were a full page ad, the page would have been mostly white space. This is just NOT how you do food —- particularly brunch. We’re not talking about dinner at a 5-star restaurant, where I might expect to receive such a sparse, barren and depressing presentation of “food art”.

Also, can we please talk about the COFFEE situation?

Coffee, of all things, should be a top consideration for brunch. But again, here at Grillsmith it is only an after thought. Plain coffee was the only offering, which was good enough for me. I am a black coffee gal, but it at least needs to be hot, richly bold and delicious! This coffee was highly watered down.

The friendly food server told me that she’d just brewed it, and so with it being fresh I had high hopes. Unfortunately, the coffee was just downright awful. Neither the lousy coffee nor the subpar food were any of her fault, and so I tipped her generously becuase that’s how I roll.

My friend would have preferred a cappuccino to accompany her waffle, but there is no such option at Grillsmith. Just a watery, light blend coffee.

I came here with a friend on a Saturday morning because she found a place on Google that promised “brunch”. Outside of the wonderful company that joined me here, there is absolutely nothing that would ever bring me back to this establishment.

Maybe lunch or dinner would be better? However, given my experience here for brunch, I don’t see myself ever giving this...

We were at Wiregrass and hadn’t been here in a while, we had kids with us so tried to get there before dinner rush so we got there at 5, they weren’t busy and we asked for a booth but they won’t do high chairs at booths so we took the table. The wait tho friendly enough was not focused on us and twice we had to search for him, you could tell he had no experience with kids as I had to ask twice for the breadsticks to tie them over for what seemed like double the wait time for our food, the entrees were good except they had burned the garlic in the spinach so it was not edible . We waited for refills and tho we asked for extra ice in the tea the ice was practically melted when he brought it so I asked for a glass of ice which never came. I had wanted to order a meal to go and dessert however we could not find our waiter and waited instead for the bill, my daughter started packing up the kids to head out and I was waiting on him to pick up bill to pay when they brought back a family to sit near us, they wanted a larger table so she said she would bus ours…I’m still waiting on him to pay out the check. When she came back to bus the table and I’m still there she asks the waiter what’s going on? He is now running to get the check cleared and get us out of there. The family that is sitting there waiting on our table which was not the only available table by a long stretch was just staring at us making me even more uncomfortable. Then as we left the hostess that had offered to bus our table for the other family was talking with the other 2 hostesses and didn’t even acknowledge us on the way out , I think she was embarrassed at this point, but the other girl did wish us a good evening as she cowered away from us. I truly think this was the worst experience e we could have possibly had. This used to be one of our favorite restaurants, however the last 2 visits have been extremely disappointing. There were 5 employees standing at hostess station, restrooms were trashed, it was rather busy for a Tuesday night, there was a large party in their back room, but they seemed staffed. They had salads lined up in the walkway uncovered, can only imagine they were for the party, but uncovered where people were walking by and sitting across from, not the best idea. When we ordered, the waiter, who was very friendly, asked if we wanted the salad out first, we said yes. My granddaughters meal was brought to the table a full 10 minutes before the salad and the entree came within 3 minutes of the salad. The steaks were not cooked as ordered but we hadn't seen the waiter for a while and gave up. We had to ask for refills on our beverages and they had no children's cups or to go cups. When the waiter returned we ordered the decadence cake to go with extra raspberry sauce, he asked if we wanted the raspberries and we said yes, there were none on cake. It is highly unlikely that we will be returning to this location. Update... Received response to contact so I did......

Overall, I had a great experience at this location. Our first time here and will repeat. I can't recommend it until after our next visit. The location was clean and comfortable with a great atmosphere. The service was excellent. Our food tasted great and came out in a decent time. There was a slight mishap with our dessert in which the manager apologized profusely and immediately corrected. Overall, we enjoyed this location and will repeat. Because of the dessert mishap, I will hold off on recommending until after my next visit.

UPDATE RETURN REVIEW It has been approximately 2 years since my last visit to this location. Because of the mishap mentioned in my previous review I didn't have this location high on my list as an option. On 09/05/2024, my wife and I were in the area and decided to have dinner here. I will keep this short and to the point. Our Server Rebecca was great until the end. I ordered the Mediterranean Wild Shrimp & Salmon and the Tai Coconut Curry Shrimp for my wife. A gentleman not wearing an apron as the other servers brought out our food, but it was the wrong order to the wrong table. Our server, Rebecca, came over immediately and corrected the error. I recalled that the menu listed jasmine rice with my order, but my wife stated I was wrong. When we finished and received our bill, I went to get the menu to prove my point about the missing jasmine rice. That is when I noticed that the cost of my meal was listed $3 higher on my receipt than what was on the menu. I brought this to Rebecca's attention and her excuse was that she may have rung me up for the 10oz salmon. The menu states you will receive an 8oz salmon with no other options, nor did she offer me options when taking our order. When I pointed this out she left to alert the manager. The gentleman that brought the wrong food out initially comes to our table and stated that they refunded my card the $3 difference and apologized adding that the menus haven't been updated. Really?!?!? I forgot to get a photo of the menu and also forgot about mentioning the missing jasmine rice. I did add a photo of my bill from that night and a photo of the online menu from their website that still has the item listed for $3 less than what they attempted to charge me. 2 visits and 2 mishaps...it will probably be a lot longer than 2 years before I...