The Gate House

When it comes to the Gate house, I have no complaints. In the summer it’s a beautiful walk through the courtyard-​like area up to the doors, especially with guests from out of town. Drink-​wise I highly recommend the Sparkling Margarita. My favorite wine on their list is definitely the Sledgehammer. So delicious. If you love artichokes as much as I do, go for the Liberty Pole Pizza. Amazing. The Xerox is also very good. Yes the atmosphere is loud but not too much where you can’t hear each other. My son was kept occupied just by looking around and listening to all of the other people and servers around us. I wasn’t as big of a fan of the rosemary garlic fries as others seem to be, but the chicken wings can compete with any other joint in Rochester.

Love this place. Simply put they have really really good food, and it’s very very consistant. Service is always A1. Actually one time they were backed up food took a while so they offered dessert on the house. That chocolate cake was gosh darn good!

Not sure why I never wrote a review on this restaurant over the years, but anyway Gate House is a cool restaurant. They offer apps, burgers, pizzas primarily. I’ve tried a few different dishes over the years, but my favorite all time is their bruschetta and the sweet potato fries. They are the best I’ve ever had. I’m not a fan of their pizzas or the shrimp po’ boy. I’ve never heard a complaint about the burgers and the salads are served in large portions. Drinks are great. I used to frequent here on a regular basis for lunch and during those hours, we never had a wait. Dinner is a different story, since the dining room is small, you’re likely to have to wait. Great choice is in the NOTA’s for casual dining.

3.5
Lovely atmosphere. Been here for date nights as well as with girl friends. Sweet potato fries are so good — I may have to get these every time I come! I’ve also had some of the pizza and salads and never been disappointed. Can get pricey, but the quality is worth it.

it served the purpose but MEH at best.
Food was good (I’ll go as far as to say my burger was excellent) but expensive for its type and quality.
Service was «just there» close to inattentive (given the fact that our table was next to the POS station).
My daughter suggested the place (her kind of crowd) and she enjoyed her visit, but I was left wanting a bit more value for the $$ I spent and the reputation of the place.
One other comment, if they are going to leave the doors to their kitchen open for the patrons to look into, they should have a staff member dedicated to sweeping regularly. Their floor was filthy the day I visited.

One of the most pleasant restaurant experiences I have had in a long time. The Gate House is well… extraordinary. Their menu items are actually fun to look at, too. Entrees named after local landmarks, iconic people of Rochester and all things Rochester. The service was outstanding and the environment was very well kept. I could not have asked for a better Wednesday night dinner with family. I highly recommend The Gate House to anyone. From wood fired pizza, grilled chicken wings to unique burgers, theres a lot to chose from. I wish I had come here sooner and will DEFINITELY be returning.
Recommended dishes: The Fagan Burger, The Duffy, Falafel Plate, Spinach & Artichoke Dip, Grilled Wings.

The ambiance is adorable but it is very, very hard to hear in there. So it’s a nice atmosphere for two of you. When our whole family went there together we couldn’t hear each other for normal conversation.
The service is excellent. I’ve been there once for brunch, once for lunch, and one time had a to-​go order of 20 coffees (we had an event down the hall from them and our coffee pot broke!). Service has been exceptional every time.
When I went for brunch, my husband was elated with his breakfast pizza but I was bored out of my mind with my Powedermill Salad. I went back for a work lunch and following the lead of my host ordered the Nicoise salad and was again underwhelmed. There simply wasn’t much flavor in the dressing.
But everyone swears by this place so I must just not be ordering well. Next time, I’ll order outside of the salad menu and see how it goes.

The Gate House is one of those staple restaurants where you never have to worry about the service. Although it can be very busy, they consistently have the best wait staff in ROC. Burgers and pizza are solid menu items; my only qualm would be that they don’t have true gluten free rolls. Gluten free pizza crust can be used instead on your burger, however this makes eating said burger extremely difficult. Despite this, I will continue to come to The Gate House for their always friendly and knowledgeable staff!

Had an excellent Cobb salad at this Rochester gem today. The wait staff were casual– not super friendly, but not negative in any way. A friend brought me here after he had tried their burger with jalapeños and sriracha, he enjoyed the same burger this time as well. The atmosphere is hip and fun but the building makes sound travel well– there were only four other groups there and my friend and I had to talk loudly to hear each other. I cannot imagine what it is like when busy; However, I would go back for the delicious food and large portions.

I would highly recommend the Mac and cheese. I’m not a fair judge of garlic parm wings because I just don’t care for them but theirs were well cooked and had plenty of both garlic and parmesan.
One of out burgers was sent back for being ordered well and coming quite rare. The burger I had was kind of disapointing the sauteed jalapeños were oily and crisp, I would vote oily and soft or just crisp and raw. Other than the jalapeño the siracha mayo was mostly mayo and the pepper jack minimal so unfortunately not as much of a flavor punch as I was hoping for. The service, quality and preparation were alright.
The onion rings I suspect are the standard prefab, oh how I had hoped for better rings of onion love.

Great food, atmosphere; pleasant service.
Signature dish — hamburgers — lived up to the hype. Turkey burger, the fegan, was awesome. Everyone in our group was complimentary of their order as well. One person in our party opted for the pizza, she was equally pleased.

This place is a lovely treat in village gate. Not as prestigious as Good luck, but also not nearly as bad of a wait and dare i say i like their fries better: P Try the garlic rosemary fries, bring your friends, and enjoy the ambiance.

My wife and I stopped by here for lunch today. The building the restaurant is in is very cool. It’s sort of an artsy indoor mall. The restaurant itself carries over some of the interesting design aesthetics.
Service was prompt, they took our order quickly and were on top of drink refills.
The food itself wasn’t really standout. We both ordered burgers. I had the Duffy. It came with lettuce, tomato, BBQ sauce, bacon and cheddar cheese. I’d eat it again if it was put in front of me at a catered event, but I wouldn’t bother stopping by to order it. We both ordered our burgers medium and they were definitely well done. The fries (shoestring) were pretty standard as well (my wife said I should add that she did enjoy her garlic rosemary fries).
Overall it was an okay dining experience. I don’t need to come back though.

Great energy on a busy Saturday night. It was a little confusing to find the entrance, we wandered through the courtyard to a door at the very back. Ordered burgers & sweet potato fries drizzled with honey. Both were beyond expectations. There were so many yummy options on the menu it was hard to choose! This is the kind of place where you can’t stop talking about when you’re going to come back before you’ve even finished. Staff was attentive. Everyone was so cheerful & genuine. A new favorite!

I was actually a little surprised by the four-​star rating. Unfortunately, my experience here was not four-​star worthy. We came in on a Thursday at around 6:00pm so the restaurant wasn’t busy by any means. Waited around five minutes for the hostess to actually seat us. After we were seated, there wasn’t a busser or a waitress that came up to us for at least 15 minutes. We didn’t have water, drinks, menus, or silverware in front of us. I can promise we didn’t look like we were being taken care of.
After about 20 minutes we finally had a waitress. We got our menus and silverware. We didn’t get our water/​drinks until 10 minutes after that. Needless to say, service seemed a little slow this particular night. I ordered the «pandora» burger because I thought burgers were the thing to get here. Honestly, I’ve had much better burgers. It was good because I was hungry, but the bun was falling apart, the burger meat was overcooked (I ordered medium rare), and the toppings weren’t all that plentiful overall. I did really love the fries and would definitely come back for those. I’ll probably try out The Gate House again and hope to update this with what went right.

This restaurant is so good! They check off all of the boxes for a good restaurant: great atmosphere and location, amazing food, and good service. I had the bacon wrapped dates and a pizza, both of which were sooo good. I ate a the bar, and our waitress was very attentive and kept our glasses full. I would detriment come here again!

Came here for lunch on a recommendation from my bff. We were seated promptly (indoors since there weren’t any more tables outside) and given water.
We placed our orders and food came pretty quickly. I forgot the name of my salad but it had asparagus, beets, peppered goat cheese, and I added falafel too. It was so good, especially the falafel… So delicious and a huge serving too. The salad also came with two cheesy breadsticks.
Our waitress was nice too but my friend asked for her son’s pizza to be boxed up and the rest of her salad; she had at least half of her salad left. The pizza was boxed but her salad was thrown out I guess since they didn’t box it up. Other than that it was a nice lunch and I’d go back for the yummy pizza’s on their menu.

As many reviewers have pointed out, The Gate House is definitely not what it used to be. They seemed to have switched out many of their made-​in-​house products (mostly the doughs, I’ve noticed) in favor of a (probably) speedier, more cost efficient, but less enjoyable product.
HOWEVER, I still think that this place is a great stand-​by to bring out of towners, grab a beer, or power-​eat chicken wings. They have marvelous chicken wings. Get the parmesan garlic wings. GET THEM.
I bring all my picky eater friends here because there’s always something that everyone loves on the menu. They have solid burgers and pizzas, with a lot of unique choices within both categories. The salads are also very good, and a large portion.
The ‘Falafel, Hummus, and Tabouli’ appetizer is amazing, and a large enough portion for at least 3 people to share. The Highland Park salad is very good, and the Liberty Pole pizza is good as well.
They do not have reservations unless you’re a party of 6 or more, and it’s pretty busy almost all of the time. So, if you want to eat here grab 6 or more people and make a reservation, or prepare to potentially have to wait a bit for a table.

The Gate House would be on our «go to» list if the wait for a table was not so crazy long on weekend nights. We really love the food here.
The salads are large, even the side salads, and very good but we come for the burgers. Over the years the burgers have not varied in quality. We usually get the Golasano (bacon, blue cheese, pesto mayo) and the Duffy (bacon, cheddar and bbq sauce) — they are excellent. There is a long list of burgers with lots of good choices.
The buns have been consistently fresh and soft and the burgers always done as ordered, medium rare. The burger price is reasonable compared to other places in town.
The fries are generally very good except when you get a plate full of the small scraps (which does occur at times — send’em back!). They are skinny fries and usually crispy and the garlic option is quite good if you are in the mood.
But let me get back to waiting for a table. Obviously this place is super popular for good reasons but the waits can easily stretch over one hour. If there are just two of you try for seats at the bar away from the door and eat there. We wished we would have on Friday night when the one hour wait according to the hostess became one and a quarter hour long before we got a table. Unfortunately the waits are even worse when there is a show at the nearby Aud. They will do reservations but you need a big group esp. on weekends.

*Brunch and Updated review*
WOAH NELLY– It’s biased review time! So, It’s been a while since I’ve given The Gate House some love and I will try to sum things up.
First and foremost, run-​on sentence alert. Just when I thought their signature Bloody Mary couldn’t get any yummier, they sweep me off my feet and onto my bumbum. You can practically feel getting punched (in a good way) by spicy herb tomato mix quickly chased by bacon salty goodness! Being a carnivore has never felt so rewarding. Ron Swanson would approve. Anyhoot, IDK how they keep improving this tomato cocktail, but it gets tastier and tastier on every visit.
On to my brunch spectacular. I went with the breakfast pizza; italian sausage, peppers, red onion and 3 over easy eggs. This is probably the best rise and shine pizza I’ve ever had. The runny eggs are perfect for dipping. I opted to add some sriracha sauce because it goes best with pizza and eggs… so this was a WIN-​WIN!
OK to end things, I just want to say that this is a consistently good eatery that has not disappointed me yet. I foresaw many future visits in a crystal ball… which in reality was my empty bloody mary glass.