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| - **All my reviews rate my experience AS A VEGAN eating at local Madison venues.**
I've eaten at Grampa's two times with a friend of mine. Both times have been for a the Tuesday night date menu. The Tuesday night date menu consists of a bottle of wine, a soup or salad, a pizza, and a dessert for a reasonable price. My date is an omnivore and I'm a vegan, and we love eating out together. With this menu, we split the wine, I get the salad, we make a half vegan/half non-vegan pizza request, and he gets the dessert since there are no vegan dessert options anyway.
The first time we ate at Grampa's I loved the atmosphere right off the bat. It's dim, cozy, and intimate in there, but not so tight that you feel like your neighbors are over hearing your conversation. On our first visit the waiter was easy-going enough about our odd request to split the pizza. The wine was delicious. The market salad was easy to make vegan (just hold the yogurt balls) and was absolutely stunning in both flavor, textures, and presentation. The pizza was yummy and filling. I just got the Finnochio, hold the cheese, and add some extra veggies that I saw elsewhere on the menu. Like I said, my date got all of the desert...the ginger cake, and he loved it! i do wish that there was a vegan option for us to share.
The next time we tried to go the wait was 90 minutes to two hours. Yikes! We were too hungry for that kind of wait so we had a delicious dinner across the street. A similar wait time awaited us on our next visit, but we were prepared and happy to sit at the bar and eat there. This time, our server seemed kind of irritated at our request to split and veganize the pizza. I get it...it's ordering off the menu which is never a favorite. But, I hate to feel like an annoyance when I go to eat, and I want to give my service to local places with a great atmosphere and delicious food, AND staff that are prepared to handle odd requests with a good attitude. We finally worked it out and the food was again DELICIOUS. We both feel satisfied, full, and wine-happy when we leave.
Overall, we love this place. The idea of Tuesday date night is fun and gives us something to look forward to midweek. The wait time keeps us from going every Tuesday. There are easier places to get vegan pizza and there are not vegan dessert options. In the end though, you're going to be happy with the quality of the food. So if you're vegan take that all into consideration and remember that the staff might or might not know what to do with your vegan requests.
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