Grovers

3.5 - The service and food was good but not excellent. I had the house salad and the table shared the Grover nachos, bacon wrapped scallops and Fried Oysters.

By the time my girlfriend and I got down to Edisto Island it was past 7pm on a Sunday, and after meeting up with my parents it was pushing 8pm.  Knowing that it was that late on a Sunday I had pretty low expectations on finding a good place to eat, especially when they said the name of the restaurant we were going to was called Grovers.  Based on the name I was fully prepared to deal with Budweiser and bar food, man was I surprised when we walked into Grovers!  Very welcoming and nicely decorated.  We sat in the bar area so there were lots of TV's.  Good beer, good wine, and the a menu with some real options.  

After getting settled in with a good bottle of wine (at a decent price) I ordered some of their she crab soup.  It had pretty good flavor, but the temperature was not nearly hot enough.  For an entree I went with the whole fried flounder.  I hadn't ever had one so the waiter was nice enough to show me how to flake the meat away from the bones, and then how to flip it and then pull the all the bones out along the spine. It was very good, tasting very fresh and not greasy at all.  So good, man do I miss living near the ocean!

Everyone else in the party also enjoyed their meals, we all left with smiles on our faces.  They say they close at 9pm but they didn't rush us or the other tables to leave, and in fact told us to please stay as long as we liked.   Good service, good food, nice environment, and decent prices - what's not to love?!

In a nutshell, lousy service, lousy food, overpriced...stay away. Now for the details: we were a large party and told the hostess we were willing to be split to speed up the wait. We were told the wait would be 35 to 45 minutes. The wait was 1.15 hours partly because the hostess forgot we were willing to be split. The hostess confirmed that others were seated ahead of us, but said it was out of her control.

After being seated and taking orders, the waitress informed us our bread was coming out of the oven, Five minutes later she was back saying they were out of bread. She then offered an appetizer or side salad. Good thing  we asked if it would be charged, because her offer wasn't a comp for the missing bread.  Table two had a different waitress who didn't take orders for 30 minutes. Table one was being served when Table two's orders were finally being taken. Several of us ordered mashed potatoes as a side. When the plates arrived, we had baked potatoes. When  asked, we were told the kitchen ran out of mashed potatoes. (Ummm, if you have potatoes, can't you make some of them mashed?) If the kitchen is going to switch the order,  shouldn't we be told ahead of time so we have a say in the change?  Several of our ordered sides never materialized, but the ones we had were so bad that we didn't ask for the missing items.

Now for the food. The ribs were inedible, fatty with gristle and little meat. Seafood pasta was overcooked with rubbery shrimp and lobster and mushy pasta. The pecan crusted flounder was dry as dust, the person who ate it was sick in the bathroom all night. The coleslaw was just dry cabbage, there was no dressing! The only entree that was uniformly liked was the crab cake. Because Table two lagged behind Table one, we ordered dessert. The desserts were good, but we suspect that they were made elsewhere and simply plated here.

We've been to Edisto several times and don't expect 5 star restaurants there. But Grovers was among the worst that any of our party has ever experienced, here, there, or anywhere.