The Granary

My momma told me: Never judge a book by it’s cover.
The Granary looks lovely! The staff is friendly and accommodating. It’s in a good location. BUT the food is sub-​par at best. I went in with a party of 8 (4 adults, 4 kids) and only one of us enjoyed his food (he had the steak & ale pie).
Our poor server was the only one in the restaurant, so we rarely saw him, but to his credit he was quite nice and did everything he could.
The kids got cheeseburgers and mac-​n-​cheese. The burgers were dense and stiff. The mac-​n-​cheese was mealy and underseasoned — from scratch! but the roux didn’t make for a smooth sauce. The kids made some good faith efforts to eat their dinners, but after tasting their food the parents didn’t ask them to eat more. They feasted on chips.
The mussels. Ugh. Worst I’ve ever had. Ever.
I was hungry! and I didn’t finish.
Three of us had them and all agreed — awful. The mussels were old and had a grainy mouth-​feel. There were a lot of cracked shells, as well as unopened ones. The white wine broth had a funky waft and tasted underseasoned (again).
Everything was an overall disappointment here.

My experience at The Granary was good.
I stopped in sometime in the afternoon to grab some lunch and watch the Six Nations Rugby fixtures. I found their food to be good, their service to be attentive, and the atmosphere to be decent.
My server was a nice gal, she rattled off all of the specials they had that day, quickly bringing me a pint after. In terms of food, I went with the mac and cheese with garlic bread. After I ordered, I noticed that several others had mac and cheese as well, which told me that I made a good choice. Indeed I did. It was excellent.
The beer selection was fine, although I didn’t have a drink menu, which made it hard for me to pick because I couldn’t see what they had. That was a bit of a let down. They should have a drink menu on the table. Maybe they do but mine didn’t have one.
Throughout the course of my meal, the staff asked me how everything was a few times. Some would get annoyed with this, but after some of the places I’ve been in Edinburgh, I welcomed it. It was nice of them to ask if I need anything more than once.
Overall, I like the location of The Granary the best. Right near the shore, with lots of good picture opportunities nearby. The food was great, the service was great (to me), and the atmosphere was alright. I would come back if I were in the area.

I didn’t eat here, but instead popped in for a drink on a Friday night. The place was busy at first as they were showing football on their big screen TV. As a bar, it was standard. My major gripe, however, was the lack of tables/​seats. A large empty restaurant in the back and nowhere to sit downstairs or on the narrow mezzanine upstairs. It’s a fine place to visit, but nothing I’d personally write home about.

Fraser is the most amazing host. He helped us match our drinks with the dinner we ordered. We are from California and this is an amazing spot to check out. Fraser was able to make our experience amazing. This was out honeymoon and our hotel was close by, we came here almost every night for food or drinks!

The food and service here is just ok.
The fact that they ran out of steak and ale pie by 7 p.m. is unacceptable.
The only redeeming factor is they’re open till 2 a.m. and they serve Innis & Gunn’s oak cask which is finished in a rum barrel. Oh its so good but its 6 pounds a pint. Bollocks.

Great place for an afternoon glass of red. Views from the windows are amazing and the atmosphere is very welcoming. If you believe in good energy this place definitely has it. Nice wine menu, a lot from Italy. Simple menu (simplicity always wins) offers sea food dishes, burgers, salads so everyone would find something for themselves. Starters were very tasty, I enjoyed selection of breads and a fish cake. Main dish was a disappointment, lack of seasoning. I would give 4 starts however my expectation about this place were higher due to location and reputation so I expected more. They failed on worn-​out menus, waiting time to be served and on serving large wine in a small wine glass.

Yeah… well… it’s just a bit MEH… Nice interior (lots of rustic timber and stone), good location (right on the Shore front, overlooking the boats) and a decent drink selection. But the staff aren’t all that friendly and the food, well, don’t bother! I work down at the Shore and wanted to like this place because it is so handy, but it just does not floating my boat! ;) I’ve eaten here 3 times (I gave them a few chances, hoping it would get better) but the quality of food was either cold/​luke warm, cheap or poor quality. The menu is uninspiring and standard pub grub, nothing to get excited about. It’s a shame, because if they improved the menu and standards, this place could be really buzzin’! They have a small gig/​function space upstairs (they even hold poll dancing classes up there), a mezzanine level for diners and cosy armchairs at the front. In the summer they open the full height windows onto the street, prefect for a sitting in the sun with an ice cool pint. They often host live acoustic sets next to the fire place from Wednesdays-​Fridays too. So they are getting there!
I last visited in November 2013, but in recent news, on the 21^st December 2013 just before Christmas, a blaze ripped through their kitchen forcing customers and staff to be evacuated. Luckily there were no casualties, but the fire spread to the roof and it took around 30 fire-​fighters extinguish the blaze! The kitchen is currently getting repaired and we are yet to hear when they will be re-​opening for food, I do hope they improve the food quality at the same time!

My friends and I happened upon this pub by chance. It has a very relaxed and chill atmosphere and we loved our waitress! I personally thought that they had great music that complimented the environment. The food is your typical pub food and they make a mean ale pie.

Not impressed. The reviews weren’t too great so v hesitant to try it but I gave it a go. I ordered their soup of the day and found the soup to be bland and found a piece of tooth pick in it to top it off! I decided not to give my main a go so canceled that. The drinks maybe go but didn’t come in for that. Wouldn’t recommend it for food.

I was here for a wedding recently and on the plus side — the pub was open to punters during the reception. On the downside, we had our wedding meal in a super crowded space, and the food wasn’t particularly good. Kill a man dense chocolate brownies, lacklustre salmon… having not visited the pub itself, I am not sure whether this was just down to the pub struggling to cope with a large party.
Otherwise, it’s an alright pub, nice to have such an open space by the docks, but overall just feels a little… lacking.

Leckeres Essen, tolle Cocktails.
Lustige und zuvorkommende Bedienung.
Angenehme Einrichtung, an dem Abend auch mit Live-​Musik.
Würde wieder hingehen.

The Granary on the Shore has a few things going for it.
1. The location
2. Fireplace
3. Comfy chairs
4. Able to open front glass panels on to the pavement.
The interior is build like a farmer’s stead and stone flooring and dark wooden balustrades on the top floor complete that look. It does make a a bit dark when there is no sun to shine through to floor to ceiling glass front.
Either in Winter or Summer it has a sun during the day time (when it is out) and the best seat in the house is at the back near the window panel and the fireplace.
The service is mostly courteous and friendly. Not too efficient, but it does add to the chill out factor of this place.
I want to like it and I have visited on many occasions, however if my favourite spot is taken it is not very pleasant. There are too many dark spots in this bar restaurant and that creates a chill factor. The second part I dislike is prices. they are ever so slightly more expensive than other bars.
The food doesn’t come up to a standard that warrants a ‘I have to come back’ comment — it is fine, being it a tad on the bland side.
No doubt I will be visiting more as the summer is approaching, but I doubt if my rating is getting any better.

Lovely situation, generally fine in terms of food and service. Ideal place to go for an after work drink and food stop with pals.

Stopped in with a group of friends, first time here and it was a nice enough bar, there was a guy with a guitar playing in the corner and he was pretty good. We were just after a drink to finish the evening off.
Good range of beers and friendly staff and even though it was a Saturday night we still had no probs getting a seat.
If I’m in the area again I ‘ll quite happily go back to this place

Ok food — not fab. Horrible service the night we went. The earlier part of the evening the crowd was full of young businessmen on the prowl. By the end of our dinner, it was replaced with older individuals.

I headed to this bar on a chilly tuesday night to take part in a pub quiz hosted by Real Radio for the Help for Heroes charity. I’ve only been here a handful of times and haven’t been overly impressed by what was on offer, but last night i was mainly there to partake in the pub quiz fun.
On arrival and after some directions from my friend, i managed to find my way upstairs to the loft bar which is above the mezzaine bar via a slightly hidden staircase near the toilets. The loft bar itself is rather chic, with dark colors and all modern interior. This is starkly different than the ground flood which has a fireplace, arm chairs, and a more cosy pub feel. It was nice, but a bit generic at the same time.
We ordered some nibbles to have during the pub quiz and i can report that they do nice chips, but found the onion rings a bit greasy. my friends assured me that the sticky toffee pudding was quite nice though. drinks were drinks, and since i was only drinking diet coke it would be pretty hard to mess that up.
the pub quiz was a good laugh although our team only won the prize for best team name! still quite chuffed with my Real Radio mug though. However, The Granary made little impression on me to make the effort to go back to try any of their main meals. It was a bar that served the function of holding a pub quiz in comfortable surroundings. I can’t say much more than that unfortunately.

I visited the Granary in the company of Kate K to listen to Caroline Gilmour (fab songstress). I’ve been to the place a few times before and thought it was ok but only just ok. I do think the music events in the Loft gives the Granary it’s edge.
The Loft, as it’s name suggests, is located on the top storey of the Granary and is a smallish space for gig but it has its own bar and more space to the left as you come in. Its worth having something to eat on the mezzanine floor beforehand. We had the bread and oils platter and chips with parmesan — can’t really go wrong with that and service was quick.
Music info on the Granary site, folks.

The inside is very well done and the staff was nice. The biggest problem was the place was understaffed. The one waiter and bartender were doing all they could to keep up but that is problem management needs to fix. The food was alright, but nothing special.

As i used to live near the Shore i have been to The Granary a few times, but never with a positive outcome.
The interior is lovely, the staff are pleasant, the location is great, the drinks are fine, the problem is the food!
When i visited one day for breakfast last year with a friend, the waitress was very sweet but when we received our food one order was totally wrong and the other just very disappointing. The prices aren’t cheap so i would expect better.
I was back down at the Shore again at the weekend so decided to give it another try. A decision i regretted. I ordered the soup and sandwich of the day, parsnip and carrot soup and bacon, brie and cranberry sandwich, for £5.99, not too bad. The soup was extremely bland, not a good start. The sandwich also wasn’t great, the brie seemed more like feta which was a bit odd.
So basically i have tried with this place but never been impressed. I would go there for a drink but won’t try eating there again unless i hear they have a new chef.

The Granary is one of the much spoken about Glasgow group G1’s first forages into the Edinburgh market and has many of the traits you would expect from their Glasgow west end establishments… well put together, great décor, ambiance, superb staff… so why such a low score!
Well usually I go to old faithful Kings Warf for my brunch but with Mum she prefered the look of the Granary so we went there. I was very tempted to get my favoured eggs beneduct but with my hangover going in to over drive the only sensible thing to eat seemed to be a fry up!
Grilled bacon, sauage, mushroom, grilled tomoato, egg as you want it, haggis, black pudding, tattie scone and toast — the words had me salivating!!!
Now I have said many times on here that the key to any meal is good produce and I think the great Scottish breaky is a perfect example of why — all the ingredients laid bare with only their taste and a bit of ketchup to help them up!
That was issue — cheap plastic pork sausages (you know the kind), ultra thin black pudding with zero flavour, chewy partially burned bacon, gloopy haggis, oil filled tattie scone!!! In a word… yuck!
This place could be and should be the brunch place of Leith. great coffee, teas all served by great staff… but if you are going to cut back on food qaulity YOU WILL LOSE!!!
Wont be back to eat any time soon or untill i hear the words… new management/​chef!
Jd = not impressed!

Lovely space, fantastic food, a great spot on a sunny day.
Nice place to stop for a drink or coffee as well if you’re just in the area.
Full review with photos please visit my blog which can be found on my profile.