Comfort food is on the menu at long-time Delray Beach casual standby Granger’s Grille

Granger’s outside

A favorite among long-time locals, Granger’s casual atmosphere is the antithesis to downtown Delray Beach’s haute dining scene and complements the menu filled with soups, burgers, sandwiches and more

Granger’s dining room

There’s nothing fancy about Granger’s Grille in Delray Beach.

It’s more diner than anything else. Reservations are not taken to sit at any of the wood-topped tables or sheet-metal covered high-tops. The walls, which hold four flat-screen TVS, has  are decorated with posters of celebrities, mostly the rock ’n roll kind, and other memorabilia, and the wainscoting looks like reclaimed wood.  Old books and magazines rest on the windowsills. The floor is an alternating palate of black and white linoleum tiles. The room is well-lit. There’s also a help-yourself popcorn machine.

All this screams comfort. Grainger’s menu to a large extent does as well with its offerings of  soups, sandwiches, chili, fried fish and more served in ample portions  at reasonable prices. There are daily specials, too, including ribs, steak, lobster and turkey. More on the food below.

Granger’s originally opened in 1995 in a former gas station on NW 6th Avenue and moved to its current location on SW 5th Avenue, about a mile south of Atlantic Avenue, in 2017. The new location, a former VFW Hall, has plentiful parking. This is the kind of place locals like to keep for their own and, indeed, Granger’s has a devoted local fan base, if social media is to be believed.

Behind it all are Adriana and Tim McLarney. Tim, who is descended from a long line of family cooks and who grew up in the restaurant business with his mom and dad, works the stoves, while Adriana oversees the front of the house.

At dinner time on a weeknight, servers and bussers are bustling about the filled dining room and the small vestibule is crowded with guests waiting to be seated. The wait can be 20 minutes. To be sure, It’s less frantic at lunch.

I had hoped to try Granger’s much ballyhooed ribs, a special on Wednesdays and Saturdays after 5 p.m., but we were there on the wrong night. The ribs frequently sell out. Granger’s customers, aware of this, can call ahead to reserve a rack. On a recent Wednesday evening, the $16 strip-steak special was sold out by 7:30 p.m.

Four-cheese French onion soup

Chili

Bahamian Conch Chowder

A bowl of Granger’s much-heralded chili ($5) was fully flavored, but not spicy and was chunky with beans and ground beef and a topping of chopped red onions and shredded yellow cheese.

Four-cheese French Onion soup ($9), served in a crock, another specialty, was a rich broth, not overly salty with lots of onions and gooey cheese atop the crock. My ordinarily fussy spouse ordered it on two separate occasions.

I was, however, not overwhelmed by the Bahamian Conch Chowder ($5 for a bowl), which was tomato-based soup with tender ground conch, potato chunks and other goodies. But it lacked the verve that one expects from the hot pepper you might find in  this Bahamian dish. This offering resembled a Manhattan chowder .

R.P. McMurphy Burger

Fried clam strips

Ahi tuna platter

Granger’s Grill does a fine job at battering and deep frying, if a Fried Clam Strip ($12) special one  at a Friday lunch is any indication.  This plateful, atop a bed of crinkle cut French flies, could easily have come from a roadside shack. Each clam strip was succulent with a crisp, golden crust that tasted clean and was virtually grease-free. On the side, little containers of coleslaw, tartar sauce and ketchup. Another long-time standby, the R.P. McMurphy Burger ($14.50), arrived on a brioche bun topped with grilled onions, mushrooms, red bell peppers, sharp cheddar cheese and beer-battered onion rings. The burger was a tad overdone and quite messy to eat. All those toppings overwhelmed the huge Angus beef  patty. I skipped the fries in favor of chips. I expected homemade chips, but was disappointed to find the ones on my plate had come straight from a bag.

Steak & Cheese Sub  ($12.50) with grilled mushrooms, onions, provolone cheese and mayo with a side of fries was greasy and dull.  Not something a Philadelphian would relish.

An ahi tuna platter was not something I would have expected at a diner type place, and  my sister-in-law should have known better.  The rare tuna, which Granger’s claims rivals  that of sushi eateries, did not shine. It had an overly fishy aroma and went largely uneaten. It arrived with a side of seaweed salad and sweet potato fries, which were not left over.

There are beer and wine offerings, including a few local brews, but we stayed with soft-drinks, which were refreshed when we were able to flag down our server.

Granger’s Grille, unlike a lot of eateries in Delray Beach, is a relatively inexpensive, casual place, You can leave your fancy duds at home. You can also leave home any high expectations for fine dining. Still, if you order judiciously and stick with basics and the daily specials, you should leave satisfied. 

Granger’s Grille

802 SE 5th Avenue 

Delray Beach, FL 33483

561-276-7881​

grangersgrille.com

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