We recently visited Against The Grain while waiting for an open air movie on the nearby beach. Our party consisted of 2 children and 4 adults, one of which is a restaurateur himself. By the end of the night we all agreed that Against The Grain was one of those restaurants that were not situated directly on the waterfront it would never have survived its first year of business.
Service: When we entered there were 3 hostesses at their desk and it seemed each was reluctant to seat us. We asked for a seat on the patio but were told that there were none available regardless of the fact that we walked past the patio to enter the restaurant and about half of the tables were still empty. We assumed the patio staff was short and accepted a table inside. Our server was nowhere to be found so we asked a hostess if she could send someone over. I ordered their float of 4 craft beers (hoping to find something new) along with the rest of our drinks and exactly 18 minutes later a server brought our drinks. Strangely, the server had no idea which of my 4 float beers was which and I just gave up trying to find out. We had finished our drinks before the server returned to take our food order which took another 40 minutes to arrive. Ironically one of the 7 year old children with us managed to say what we were all thinking. When the server took another drink order from us he blurted out "Daaaady, when is the food going to come? I'm sooo hungry". It was probably the highlight of the entire experience.
Food: None of us felt the quality of the food was anywhere near the price that they were asking. I ordered the ATG Roadhouse Sandwich and my wife ordered the Wild Mushroom Flatbread. Neither of which were particularly bad but they were basically what you would receive in any typical big box chain restaurant. My wifes flatbread was a bit more disappointing than my sandwich as when you order something that is titled "wild Mushroom" you would expect more than just a few mushrooms scattered here and there. When it first arrived I actually had to confirm with my wife that she did in fact order the wild mushroom flatbread and not something else.
Overall: Our experience was more than just a bit disappointing. Our wives and the children just felt the need to get out of the restaurant and my friend and I remained behind to wait (another 10 minutes) to pay the bill. Needless to say none of us will be going back and in retrospect I kind of regret choosing Against The Grain when there were perfectly good food trucks out on the street.