The Grotto

At the behest (I really wanted to use that word) of our wonderful readers (that's you) we went to The Grotto for our weekly lunch.  You guys are the awesomest.  Seriously.  We especially love you this week because The Grotto was a pretty neat little place.

The first thing that hits you right in the face when you go to The Grotto is that there isn't any servers.  There are menus on the wall, you grab one, decide what you want, order it and then go sit down.  They call your number and you go pick up your food.  It's not a bad thing, and it fits really well for lunch in particular, but it is different.  It's like a super high quality fast food place.  It is also different for the purposes of our blog as they are obviously not going to get a service rating.  Our food was done pretty quickly and the girl at the register was nice, but that is just about all the service that you get.  Once again, I want to stress that it's not a negative, it's just different for our purposes.

The menu has a good variety of food.  There are burgers (which I'll talk about below), sandwiches (which Sarai will talk about below), salads and pizzas.  This place struck us as somewhere that you go specifically for lunch.  The food on the menu, aside from the burgers, was very light.  You could eat here for lunch on a work day and not be completely useless afterwards.  The prices were all very reasonable, especially for the serving sizes.  We both ate there for under 25 bucks and we can't go to Sonic for less than 20.  So it's really high quality food for really reasonable prices.

The restaurant itself was clean and not overly crowded.  I do have to admit that, with a name like The Grotto, I was expecting it to be dark and dungeon-like.  However, it wasn't.  This is a positive for most people I'm sure, but I was looking forward to eating in a cave.  Oh well.

Overall, this was a good place to grab a friend and have lunch.  The menu can suit just about anyone's tastes and the price is right.  We both absolutely loved our meals as you will see below.

Thanks again for voting on the poll and a special thanks to Jeff Winters who was the inspiration for the poll this week.  It is really great getting feedback from all of you.  Make sure you comment and let us know what you think about the places we are eating at.  We both get a warm and fuzzy feeling when there are comments we can respond to.  I'm also going to shamelessly plug passing this along to any of your friends here in Springfield or the surrounding areas.  The more people, the better!

Overall Experience  ★    ★    ★    ☆   ☆  

Food  ★    ★  ★  ★    ☆  

Atmosphere  ★    ★    ☆   ☆   ☆  

Justin's Impressions:

As I stated above, I wasn't sure what to think about this place when we were on the way there.  Thanks to what most adults would consider an overactive imagination, I was hoping for a dark cave with really exotic food.  What we actually got was probably way better in most people's opinion.

I went boring and ordered the bacon cheeseburger because we ran into a friend there that said the burgers were awesome.  I took the challenge, assuming the burger would be just ok.  It wasn't, it was really good.  I love places that ask you how you want your burger cooked.  I asked for medium, I got medium and it was delicious.  I also love places that give you a lot of bacon on a bacon cheese burger, The Grotto delivered the bacon.

The highlight of the meal wasn't the burger, it was the side that I got with my burger.  Anyone who has had the misfortune of spending a Thanksgiving dinner with me knows that I love sweet potatoes.  They are far superior to their less sweet cousins in pretty much every way.  The Grotto had the best sweet potato fries I have ever had.  They also had cinnamon and sugar available to sprinkle on them.  The flavor of the fries, mixed with the great burger and the $1.50 Schlafly's Coffee Stout pretty much made this one of the best lunches ever.

Alright, I've rambled enough.  The Grotto is a great place for lunch and I was pleasantly suprised by the food.  It was the last place I expected to have one of the best burgers in town.

Sarai's Impressions:  

This week, I ordered the Avocado Chicken Club Sandwich. It sounded appetizing for a late lunch. This sandwich is something that I wouldn't normally order... but Justin was already getting the burger. In a panic to order something different than Justin, I ordered this.

I was actually shocked at the prices, first off (in a good way). The passed few places we have been were not easy on the ol' pocket book. The Grotto was very reasonable for the style of food they have. 

They called out our number, we got up to get the food. Much to my surprise, everything comes sort of disassembled. The dressing for the sandwich was off to the side of it leaving you to put it where you want it. Some people may not like this about them, but I am they type of girl that likes things a certain way. Putting it together was no big deal to me. For the record, it was wonderful ! Great flavor combination, very well cooked. I'm not saying a sandwich is really hard to make correctly, but you certainly can screw up chicken if you aren't careful. 

All in all, I would definitely visit The Grotto again. I am loving the fact that it is so close to my work and I can call in my order. I can confidently recommend The Grotto to you and your family.

 Thanks for reading, see you next week!!!!!