About The Wharf
Beyond their size, small businesses are defined by their spirit. And at the helm are their intrepid founders—scrappy, ambitious, and resilient. They invent and build things despite uncertainty, because it’s what drives them. Their risks lead to innovation that moves the world forward. And we need them.
We as a group of three drove up from San Diego to visit the site of the wild game festival held in Irvine. We arrived hungry, and a friend local to the area mentioned that we would be pleasantly surprised by a sleepy restaurant “The Wharf” located in the heart of old “Garden Grove”, we found it, classy location, in the heart of “Old Garden Grove”, there was plenty of easy parking front and back of restaurant. Greeted by Christine, we told her we where first time visitors and heard that we would enjoy the venue and especially the food….awesome location, beautiful atmosphere inside, everyone we met were friendly and attentive to getting us served with drinks always a plus in my book. We ate like savages, most a blur but I can say the stand out for me was the Clam Chowder Soup & the Buffalo Chicken wings, everything was superb but those were my favorites…casual, comfortable, chill, thats the mindset we had and we loved it!
Air conditioner was down during 92 degree weather. No air flow or fans, super uncomfortable. In my opinion, this place shouldn't be open until they fix the issue. Other customers left immediately after entering the oven...I should have done the same. Plastic table covers (or something) add a little extra to the uncomfortable environment. I won't be back.
This place is excellent for food--once you can get seated. There needs to be a better system set in place or the workers need to be trained better for efficiency...or they just need to hire more workers. I have been here many times. The last time, I had called and made a reservation. When I arrived, the restaurant wasn't even half full but we ended up waiting over 20 minutes last our reservation time to be seated. I love the food, though. I love that they have space for large parties as well as small intimate ones. Sometimes food takes a long time to make. If that is the case, the servers need to inform the customer of that. One of the items we ordered was a sushi roll--one sushi roll. 30 minutes later, we were still waiting. Thinking that they had forgotten, we reminded them. The server went to check and then came back and said they were cooking a new batch of sushi rice. It was near closing. They could have just told us that they would need to make new rice which would take awhile or give us the option to not order it because of how late it was in the evening. Sometimes getting the servers to bring us the bill or even pick up our payment took a long time. This doesn't take away from the quality of the food, though. The food is excellent and they have many options.
First time visiting this location, and boy was it truly worth it. The food is fresh, and they have high quality. The service was extremely exceptional. I highly recommend this establishment
Ordered a pound of shrimp, oysters, lobster (I think) mac & cheese, cajon fries and chicken tenders. The cajon fries are really good. I wasn’t a big fan of the sauce for the shrimp. The Mac and cheese was good