Grandma's Meatball - MANASQUAN

Food was decent, but not great. For the prices I would expect to be more impressed by the food, and certainly would expect larger portion sizes. For $33 the Veal Marsala only comes with a small serving of mashed potatoes. Flavor was good but not overly impressive. BYOB is one of the saving graces.

We went this past Saturday to Grandma’s Meat and we were so disappointed. We have been going there for a few years now. We ordered the sampler appetizer and asked if we could have 2 Sicilian meatballs to replace the regular meatball. The waitress say She couldn’t do that. I said we always do it. She then said the new policy is NO substitutions allowed and it started 2 weeks ago! When the sampler came out the regular meatball was like the size of a baseball and the Sicilian was the size of a golf ball, which use to be larger!!! Then one person in our party ordered the eggplant parmigiana, she asked if she could have gluten free pasta instead of the regular. Answer was you have to order a whole order of the gluten free pasta, we don’t do half orders and NO substitutions! Prices went up and portions were smaller. The four of us told our friends who use to dine there and we all agreed not to go back!

I've been coming to Grandma's Meatball for years. We had my brothers Communion party there, family celebrations, and many other events. We have always looked past the fact that the staff was rude. They constantly would rush us out and make us feel like a burden. We were regulars at this restaurant, we gave the owner pieces of our Communion cake to bring home to his wife. Tonight was my last dinner home before I left for college. My dad had made a reservation on Thursday since they are very strict about reservations (even though they always have open tables and I've seen them deny people service countless amounts of times). It is now Saturday. We told them our name and they said they did not have our reservation. My dad pulled up his phone call history and there was the call to Grandma's Meatball on Thursday. They then told us they could not seat us and we had to leave. It would've been a lot better if the owner we have supported for so long was a lot nicer than he was. I didn't expect much from the lady next to him, since she's always very rude, but I was hoping he would have been more polite when handling the situation. Sadly he was incredibly rude and annoyed with us, even though his staff made the mistake. Huge disappointment. We will sadly never be back to this restaurant after years of going. Grandmas Meatball is too caught up in the summer rush to remember the families that come all year round. Do better.

Great food, great service. Grandma never disappoints!

1. Very small portion for the price.. not worth it! 2. If a restaurant offers gluten free anything, they a. Should have it in the menu (no gf meatballs? That’s why we went!! and b. Know how to cook it. We were hoping that they’d at least get the pasta right but my dish had pasta that was literally uncooked. I tapped it in the plate. The owner looked insulted. Really? Then she brought it back to the chef, came out and said, “The chef cut a piece with a fork. He said that’s Al dente.” My husband said “Some of it was raw, I could’ve jabbed someone with it!” No accountability nor apology offered by the waitress, chef nor owner. Take your chances if you like but that was money wasted and insult to boot. The waitress actually had the gall to ask if we’d like dessert… wha????