Riverview Cafe - Grand Rapids

As plant-based eaters, this is our favorite restaurant in Grand Rapids. The food is absolutely delicious, and the service is outstanding. And the drinks? If you love Campari and Aperol, definitely take a stroll down the boulevard!

I ordered an Old Fashioned but it came without a cherry, which struck me as odd since it's typically served with one and some orange peel. They boasted that GQ named it the best burger place, but I’ve definitely had much better. I tried the Government Cheese burger, but the stuffed cheese in the middle was missing and the burger was incredibly dry. My coworker mentioned hers was also dry, and she’s had far superior burgers elsewhere. The service was as good as it could be, given that we were a large group, but everything took a long time to arrive. On the plus side, the restaurant had a cool vibe that reminded me of some spots in downtown Chicago.

This restaurant is quite popular, and seating is limited, so I highly recommend calling ahead to check the wait time. I had heard their burgers were famous, so I ordered the Mission Impossible Hawaii burger. I'm one of those people who loves pineapple on everything, despite what others may say! The burger was fantastic, but I discovered the real standout was the mac and cheese. My friend had ordered the vegan mac and cheese, but since they were out of shrimp, she substituted it with vegan chicken, and I couldn’t resist trying a bite. It was delicious! I ended up ordering their mac and cheese to go. As someone who can’t have dairy, I must say the vegan version was even better than the traditional one! While I had a great experience overall, my other friend mentioned she wasn't a fan of the Mr. Fables burger. She took the leftovers home, and when she had it the next day, she said it gave her an upset stomach. That was a bit disappointing since they're renowned for their burgers, so I hope that isn’t a common issue.

Visiting for the holidays and decided to take my niece here for dinner last Thursday. Everything was great. Our server, Jennifer, was kind, and gave us superb service. Ordered the poor man 's wedges and the vegan sandwich with the crab cake . It was delish. I came back the next day solo, had Jennifer as my server again. Ordered the same thing. No problem It was the 3rd visit . At this point I 've already spent over $100 dollars as a customer. I brought all of my nieces and unfortunately was served cold and /expired food. In which my one of my nieces immediately became sick. Although the first two times were great , there is never an excuse to serve customers expired food. Beware of the discounted prices. It 's discounted for a reason I 'm rooting for Stella 's though. Great customer service make for a great business and they have that down pact

This place is really neat. There's a lot going on inside decorations wise. Kind of a spooky arcade feel. There are a ton of different old arcade games and pinball machines to play while you hang out. We brought our kids with us since it was in the afternoon on a Saturday. I'd say maybe not necessarily appropriate for really small kids here though they had Killer Clowns from Outer space on the TV and it may cause nightmares for some. Our server was very nice and helpful. No complaints there at all. Everyone in there seemed very chill in general. Again I am very appreciative of the dietary restriction awareness in GR which makes dining for us much less stressful since we have 2 people with food allergies. The beer selection was a nice spread and not all IPAs something I definitely appreciated! Got the heffeweisen and was not disappointed, it was really tasty and paired great with our meal. My kids split a burger because the burgers are 1/2 pounders. They both loved them and said they we were very juicy. My husband and I split the grilled cheese and the avocado nuggets. Both were excellent. The grilled cheese had brie, blackberries and onions and it just was the perfect balance of sweet, savory and salty. Bread was toasted well also and the fries that came with it were spicy but not overwhelmingly so. The avocado nuggets were surprisingly quite delicious. I'm always leary of warm avocado but they did it right. The batter was very unique. It reminded me of falafel and was really good. It came with the vegan ranch which was very flavorful and paired nicely with the nuggets. I bet this place is poppin at night and a great time. It's everything I want in a beercade during the day and I wish we had more time that we could have hung out longer.