Three Notched Grill

On a short trip to Crozet, I have discovered this restaurant with a great ambiance, southern hospitality, good food, acceptable collection of wine. The owner and the bartender have made it a point to make sure that the random client that I was had a great experience. I walked away with total satisfaction. The amazing part is the place is still full of potential.

My wife and I love coming here. Whether for a fancy meal or a burger, the service is always excellent and the food delicious. If you ever find yourself in Crozet at dinner, you won’t be disappointed if you eat here.

Our party of seven enjoyed every appetizer, beverage, entrée, and dessert ordered and enthusiastically consumed! My salmon dish was coked to perfection and my brother’s oyster appetizers were the best he’d ever eaten, for example. The service was excellent… attentive but not overly so. We liked the seating, which felt surprisingly private enough in a roomful of people. We look forward to more dining experiences at Three Notched Grill!

Three Notched Grill is definitely top notch! I’ve eaten at some of the best restaurants around the world, and I can say that this unassuming restaurant holds its own to those places. You can tell that the chef really cares about the dishes that he’s putting out. My favorite appetizer is the steamed mussels. The broth is luscious and can be eaten with the warm bread that accompanies your meal. As an entrée, I enjoy the sea scallops in tarragon cream sauce. The ambience is nice and can be quite romantic as the lights are turned down lower in the later evening. This place is not pretentious and keeps a quaint small town feel. It can be quite enjoyable with a larger groups also.
I really don’t understand the poor reviews regarding this restaurant. It might be due to people with in undiscerning palates or with poor attitudes.

Take everything there is to like about Duner’s. Remove those things that you don’t like. Place the restaurant in Crozet. Staff it with amazing people. Viola you get Three Notch. Hands down the best place to eat in Crozet and always worth the drive from Cville or Waynesboro.
The menu is always changing based on what’s fresh and available. The apps are fun, innovative and amazing portion size. The entrée fish and meats are butchered in house and preparations change daily. Always a vegan entrée and lots of GF options if that’s your thing.

We eat here often. They have awesome fish dishes. I had the rockfish with papaya salsa and it was superb. We had wild mushroom egrolls with an awesome sweet and sour sauce to dip in. Roasted cauliflower soup was amazing and vegan. We finished with dessert and be sure to try the seasonal fruit crisp. Always fresh and delicious ingredients. My Mom had the beef tenderloin with mushroom reduction sauce. It’s not to be missed either. Really lovely and friendly staff. The mashed potatoes were also amazing.

This is the best restaurant in town! A little more upscale than the other eateries in Crozet. Unbelievably delicious! Right on point as to how a good meal should be prepared. My friend had a cold summer soup I believe it had squash in it however she loved it! And she had the crab cakes. Too bad they were out of the fish tacos but when a restaurant is out of something, that usually means it’s so good that they ran out of fresh ingredients! I consider that a good thing. We plan to go back often and enjoy the atmosphere. Don’t forget about the bar! It’s a big area and looks cozy for conversation.

«Mistakes happen» — Mine was eating here.
Ordered the Trout stuffed with shrimp. Started out fine but when I opened up the trout (he was a whole bugger, head and all) I discovered nearly half the fish closest to the spine was the tell-​tale peach color of raw, and two of the shrimp were the delightful shade of bochulism grey. I suppose the only thing worse than finding two raw shrimp in your dish is to see 1 ½ raw shrimp on your plate!
I pointed this out to the passing waitstaff and she said «yes, that is raw» and went to get our server.
Our server came, looked at the plate and said «I can have the chef finish cooking it, bring you another one or bring you something else».
Hello, does anyone in this place know how to make an apology?
I asked for an appetizer to finish the meal and ordered two glasses of house chardonnay to drink while it was being cooked.
when the bill came, not only did it include the uncooked entrée, but we were also charged for the appetizer brought as a replacement for the health hazard, and the two glasses of crappy Chardonnay we drank to while away the time.
On my way to the rest room, I took the bill to the hostess and pointed out I was being charged for their kitchen’s mistake.
She brought back the bill to my wife, still bearing the cost for the additional beverages, which she reminded her we would not have had to order if we had been able to finish our meals at the same time. She have my wife a look like she was crazy.
She brought back the bill, free and clear of the costs of their mistake, but still had that wonderful look on her face of «how dare you».
Apparently that look is part of the customer service training at Three Notched Grill (while apologies are still lacking,…never once heard the word «sorry») as the chef came out to our table and said «I hear there was a problem with one of the dishes»
I told him the fish and shrimp were raw and that the staff tried to charge me for the inedible food as well as the replacement.
His response was text book «How not to run a service business»
«Mistakes happen» he said, then added «Please don’t ever come back»
Mistakes do happen. We all make them, including us in our business.
But we are not judged by our mistakes. We are judged on how we recover from them.
Three Notched Grill fails this basic test.
Never again — did not need to be asked.

I’m surprised at the mediocre reviews here. I’m a local and I think they have consistent, excellent food and service. For a nice meal with a nice atmosphere without leaving little Crozet, this is a great choice.
The owners are restaurant veterans and always on site making sure everything is good. The wait-​staff is loyal and has been with them for years.
Even the bar scene can be fun. In a town like Crozet, six people at the bar is a full fledged party.
For us, Three Notched compares with the nice places in Charlottesville without the drive.

The Mister and I really wanted to like this place, as it came well recommended by the B&B at which we were staying.
We arrived with optimism. I was a bit frustrated by the confusion in seating us and I really hated where they seated us, given 90% of tables were free. Was it really necessary to sit us to that my back was thisclose to the servers’ computer? I spent the entire meal with the uncomfortable feeling someone was standing right behind me. Oh, wait. Someone was. On a practical note, this also made it much harder to complain to the Mister about the food during the course of our meal.
We started with lamb meatballs. I found them a bit undercooked, but the Mister told me I was being squeamish. I pushed the meatballs toward him and reserved judgement of the establishment. The Mister really liked them and was optimistic for the rest of the meal. Salads arrived. They were very basic — handful of lettuce, two slices of cucumber each, a few rings of onion, heavy handed dressing drizzled not tossed. The Mister liked the ginger dressing while I found the balsamic a bit too strong. At this point, we were still having a decent dining experience, probably because I was going to town on the bread and frozen butter.
Entrée time! I ordered the lasagna and was … confused. The noodles had cooked for about three minutes too long and were disgustingly soft. There was no ricotta cheese. Criminal! The red sauce was fine. Somehow despite the red sauce and the overcooked noodles, the entire thing tasted dry.
The Mister thought he had ordered a beef tenderloin. He tasted it and made a frightful face. He then did his usual ‘Taste this.’ Like an idiot, I did. The sauce tasted like it had turned and the meat was foul. Three bites later, the Mister insisted that it was not in fact beef but rather lamb. I tasted it again and, you know, it did sort of taste like lamb. Weird. He forced down a few more bites, but we both left more than half our entrees on the plate.
For this reason, we ordered dessert. (Yeah, don’t ask.) We ordered a frozen chocolate mousse to split. Sarah Lee done good here, I will give them that. The whip cream it was served with had not been mixed with any vanilla or sugar, giving it an incomplete taste.
Prices were confusingly high for both the area and the quality of the food. I’m not local, so I probably wasn’t going to return regardless of the experience. Our server often took long absences from her duties and was impossible to find when we wanted to pay. We left feeling a bit sick to our stomachs, disappointed and determined to drive to C’ville for our next meal.

Insulting and rude are the actions of the wait staff. Arriving shortly after 5pm on a Sunday evening, my family requested a table for 3 adults and 3 children. The initial response was SEVERELY lacking showing great annoyance and the hostess immediately asked if we had a reservation. They managed to seat us PROVIDED we would not interfere with a 7:30 dinner reservation, remember it is only 5:15. The food while adequate in taste, was greatly over priced with small portions. My son’s burger was charred burned as well as the bun. Though professional in carrying a plate or a bread basket the waitress spilled water on the table and overcharged the patrons behind us over $ 20. Top it off as the wait staff repeatedly thanked and said goodnight to leaving patrons not a word or even eye contact was made as we left. Overall, the experience was VERY DISAPPOINTING. We were polite and our children were well behaved during the course of the meal. We live in Crozet and will NEVER walk through their doors again. We will also spread the word to the other local yokels. Trust me there are PLENTY of other food establishments to enjoy.

My meal was superb! I wasn’t really hungry so I just had a crab cake. It’s the best I’ve had — ever! The inclusion of white corn married well with the crab. The accompanying jicama slaw was awesome with sublime flavors.
I really appreciate that they offered local beer on draft as well as local wines. The Star Hill IPA was perfect.
Unfortunately, my dad’s lamb was undercooked (pretty much raw) and the acoustics are TERRIBLE in the small side room we were in. Other diners’ conversations drowned out our own. Tablecloths and carpeting would help.

We recently moved to the area, and have really been looking forward to trying Three Notched. What a letdown!
The restaurant exterior is nondescript, but the interior atmosphere is inviting and comfortable. The service was very good, superior to most of the restaurants in the area we have tried over the past nine months. The menu is very intriguing, and the salads really set us up to hope for a superb dining experience. Not so much at the end of the day, and no where near approaching what our bill racked up to be…
I had beef tenderloin in what was listed on the menu as a «Gorgonzola cream sauce.» They clearly MISSED adding the Gorgonzola. I could detect not a hint of the fine cheese taste in the sauce, all cream, no bite. The meat was cooked properly, but the mashed potatoes were very plain tasting, almost institutional (and I have enjoyed binging in many a military chow hall over the past 20+ years!)
My wife had a similar experience with her chicken dish. The «stuffing» in the stuffed chicken breast was devoid of any of the interesting tastes listed on the menu. Basically she just got a piece of overcooked chicken with some bland, nondescript stuffing.
The best part of the whole meal was my daughter’s corn dog and fries. Her meal (aside from the salads) was more delicious that either of our entrees. If there ever is a next time, we will all order off the children’s menu!
The food was bland, did not live up to the descriptions on the menu, in a word it was «GERIATRIC.»
For a $ 100+ tab (food and two beers plus one children’s menu item), I really feel ripped off… If my total tab came in under $ 50, I would have been OK with the food. We just got back from Florida, and had much better meals for the same tab in Downtown Disney. There are much better experience/​$ ratios in the Charlottesville and Crozet areas.

I went to Three Notched Grill with a large group for a birthday party. The waitress was superb and handled such a big group with ease.
My husband ordered the baby arugula salad, which was served in a puff pastry bowl… I tried to steal it from him, it was so delicious!
I ordered the Beef Tenderloin with a mushroom wine sauce, and mashed potatoes. The meat was cooked well, and I enjoyed the dish. My only disappointment was that I felt the price point ($ 27) didn’t match the quality/​quantity of the beef. It was missing something… maybe a side of a vegetable?
I would definitely go back to try their other entrees (Shrimp with Pasta, Burgers, Chicken with Ham and Gruyère), all of which looked delicious and were less expensive. My husband had the fish tacos (with salmon) and enjoyed it.

We’re from SF Bay Area where high end, top-​notch restaurants abound, and I some times assume rural or non-​urban places won’t measure up. So my expectations for a Crozet, Va restaurant were not that high. But Three Notch Grill was a pleasant surprise, and an excellent eatery by any standard. The dining room is attractive, the wait staff is friendly and attentive (without being cloying), and the food is well prepared and delicious. We had two different salads to start, and both were scrumptious, dressed just right. My only complaint was that mine (roasted beet salad with spinach, walnuts, etc.) was way too large for an appetizer/​first coarse. My wife’s arugala salad with pine nuts and goat cheese was served in a pastry shell, and was perfect. I followed with the beef tenderloin, which was cooked perfectly (medium rare, as requested), with just a taste of blue cheese on top, and was delicious. The wife reported that her roasted vegetable tagine was also great. We shared a lovely apple crisp dessert. They also have a lengthy wine list featuring wines from all over the world, including quite a lot from our home state, but we had a Virginia wine (Jefferson Vineyards Meritage) which was quite good, and offered at only about 30% over retail, which is amazing. If you get a chance, definitely try this place.

I love Three Notched Grill. Great food — my favorites: mussels, beet salad, arugula salad, duck eggrolls, and everything else on the menu. Fabulous margaritas. I often walk up the road from work for a meal on the front porch with a friend and my dog — and they always bring her a bowl of water. Three cheers for Three Notched.

I live on the north side of Charlottesville and a couple times a month drive all the way out to Crozet to eat at Three Notched Grill. The food is DELICIOUS. The baby arugula salad is a must. We usually share that and go from there. The menu is inventive but you can still get delicious comfort foods.
The nachos are divine and the burgers are always perfect.
The booths in the bar are our favorites. The service is perfect and the friendly. There are tables on the front porch which are great during the summertime and they’re dog-​friendly.

Good food, comfortable surroundings and pleasant service. The «fresh» fish dishes can use a little less time on the grill.