The Grove Establishment

Great local family restaurant. Never had a bad meal there (never had an unbelievable one either), service is fast and polite. It is what you’d expect for a mid range, family restaurant — price wise too.

Great wood fired pizzas with a perfect thin and crispy base. There is a $ 15 specials menu for lunch with some good deals.

From July 2011
Thank you for restoring my faith in Brisbane’s ability to serve great food.
My girlfriend and I just had a lovely school night dinner here. Lamb salad (I am on a diet) and steak with Diane sauce washed down with a lovely glass of shiraz.
Lamb was cooked beautifully, tasted fantastic and portion size was good — I was not left wanting (well maybe wanting some carbs but diet says «no!»).
My girlfriend LOVED her steak (also cooked perfectly) and couldn’t stop raving about the Diane sauce.
The fit out is great and it was lovely and cosy, perfect for a winter night.
Great food, wine and service — thank you, and… I’ll be back.
L

I’ve only had a coffee here before when I came in with a couple of friends before dropping in on the local Woolworths. I came during the day in the middle of the week — not exactly the most pumping time for business.
I found the other customers here to be either rich businessmen having drinks and/​or lunch; solo men facing the street and gazing out; and a few older gents, sitting alone also. Each one of them stared at me like I was fresh meat. That’s when I noticed that, having come along with two male companions, I was the only female in the place.
The place looks beautiful inside, so I think I’d like to come back here at night-​time when there’s a larger crowd and I’m not the only female in sight. It was a little awkward. The crowd also seemed to be at odds with the classiness of the place itself. Strange.

My brother booked a table for our immediate family, our cousins, and his close friends at The Grove for his birthday. In short, it was a goddamn giant table. And the staff at The Grove were more than accommodating and attentive to each of us.
I ordered the BBQ pork spare ribs for $ 28, which were delicious (but bathed in sauce, which I wasn’t too keen on) and arrived with a very much needed bowl of warm water.
The décor is very modern and the atmosphere relaxed (the hanging plants are a nice touch), making it the perfect place to share a meal with a big group of people who may not know each other very well. (Which is why The Grove is perfect for functions and is available for birthday bookings.)
After we finished our meal, we checked out the bar on our waitress’ insistence. Downstairs from the main dining area, it was very cosy and rustic (there are segregated rooms in which to play snooker), but it wasn’t anything mind blowing and each of us left slightly irritated by the staff’s pestering.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been the one climbing trees and relentlessly begging my parents for a treehouse. And the idea of a secluded resort set in the canopy of a rainforest; heaven. So without actually climbing a tree, or paying through the nose to either A) build a treehouse or B) stay in a resort, I found the next best thing in Ashgrove. Simply called, ‘The Grove’.
You are instantly surrounded by carved wooden structures — from the exposed rafters in the ceilings, artfully designed wooden lights, illuminated leaf-​shaped lights and polished wooden floor, through to the pot plants popping out of the walls and ferns scattered throughout the restaurant.
As far as the food goes, it’s very much a gastropub, with an emphasis on dry-​aged meats and woodfired pizzas. They put their own twist on their dishes, as a simple tandoori pizza becomes a well-​balanced blend of spicy and sweet from the addition of pumpkin and a drizzle of home-​made mango chutney.
There’s a function area that can be hired out for special occasions, a sofa to chill out on and a bar downstairs, aptly named ‘Roots Bar’. Well worth checking out if you’re in the area.

A friend recommended that we hit a bar called The Grove for a bite to eat and some drinks one night. When we arrived, it didn’t look like a bar, more like a modern restaurant. I was kind of jaded because I really didn’t have the dollars to shell out for an expensive meal.
My friend clarified that we weren’t actually staying upstairs. So I followed him to a staircase that led down to the second establishment called the Roots Bar. I was pretty impressed with this hidden gem, the inside décor reminded me of an old English pub and the courtyard had many seats, some even made out of old doors. I ordered a steak and vegetables that was around $ 20 and proceeded to get into some beers.
The atmosphere was pretty good, there was a mixture of young and older patrons and the vibe was pretty upbeat. Our meals, in my opinion, weren’t worth the money we paid for them. Honestly, for a pub dinner at twenty bucks I would have expected a lot more than the bistro standard. But maybe I was a little annoyed because I was struggling to pay for beers that seemed a little pricey for a local drop.
That being said, the next time I went to The Grove (yes I went back), I went with my wife and dined upstairs. We ordered a pizza and a pasta dish that seemed pretty well priced and when they came out look outstanding. We got to try our each other’s culinary selection and my conclusion was that I’d rather dine than hit the bar.

I had only been eighteen for a handful of months when The Grove first opened. Nights out had lost none of their allure and when bereft of ideas my friends and I would head to the nearest drinking establishment just because we could. So to say i was excited about the prospect of a genuine bar opening in my little community is something of an understatement. An Ashgrove local all my life it seemed I had come of age just at the right time — we were going to have our very own ‘local’! With expectations like these it should come as no surprise that The Grove proved something of a disappointment. Sure the pizza’s were great and the downstairs bar area was interestingly laid out but the drinks were pricey and the upstairs restaurant uninviting. And so, despite repeated attempts, this potential ‘local’ never really caught on with the local eighteen year olds.
Four years later and The Grove is still going strong. It still serves delicious wood-​fired pizza’s but it turns out the upstairs restaurant has a menu with a lot more to recommend it. Including a wide variety of Modern Australian Cuisine and a quality steak selection. The pricing is still on the steep side but it seems a lot more reasonable now than through the eyes of the eighteen year old me. Or as I like to call him, the Anti-​Money.
The Grove stands now as s a testament to the fallibility of first impressions and the wisdom in not making penniless university students your target market. With a good quality restaurant, underground cocktail bar and beer garden this is one establishment that’s well worth a look. Even if you’re not a ‘local’.