Mezzo Grille

I’ve been here 4 times so far and I’ve only heard about it in May. I have only come on a Saturday and for the nightlife so can’t say anything about the food. Every time I have come the drinks are good and the bartenders are fast and attentive. They’re really good at seeing who hasn’t gotten a drink yet and they make great drinks. The music has been good and the place gets super busy. Last night was the first time I had to wait, almost an hour, to get in so definitely a good idea to get there before 10:30pm. Mezzo’s is definitely the spot for me and my friends.

The saving grace of Mezzo is it’s martini list and cute college waiters. I opted for the Pre-​fix of Middlesex which offers an appetizer, main dish and dessert. I got the Thai-​chili shrimp, and the waffle and chicken for my main meal. I was surprised when I tried to cut into the chicken breast and met resistance. It was rock hard on one side. I was confused and immediately wondered if the hardness came from a bone in it. But no, it was some weird reaction of re-​heating or weird storage. I asked my waiter about a possible bone, and he said there wasn’t one, and he offered to take it back. I didn’t feel like pressing the issue. I think if you have a kitchen that allows something to be served as this piece of abnormally hard chicken was, then there are probably bigger issues.

Never been here for the food, I’ve really only been for the night life. Stopped going quite a while back though. However, I decided to give it a shot last weekend. I ordered some type of tropical margarita from the bar downstairs. The bartender automatically gave my friend and I attitude off the bat. I got my drink and nearly choked from how much of one ingredient she put in the drink, so I just asked if she could please lighten it up for me and her answer was «Um well did you not read the ingredients? Guess ill remake it for ya» and put it back down on the bar and walked away before I could even say whether it was okay or not. Gee, thanks hun! Still tipped her $ 2 for a $ 9 cocktail though even after that service.

Great atmosphere, live music and drinks. Not a place to go for food — terrible and overpriced! Better food at Chilis and I’m not a fan of that place to put things in perspective. Greasy, tasteless food. Would go back for drinks/​music but that’s it.

Well I was looking at my old review, and noticed that is 4 years old! I guess it’s time for an update.
We ate here on Valentine’s Day, though not for Valentines Day. The food is pretty good, the beer selection has some good choices, but what I really still love is the layout of this place. Unfortunately it wasn’t warm enough to use the outdoor patio. (They have outdoor fire pits for one is just a little bit too chilly, but it was literally in the negatives this visit). When the weather is nice, the variety of purposes this place can serve as impressive. You can come here for a semi-​classy meal and drinks, or just drinks and apps closer to the barhappy hour at the bar, or fun outdoor night with drinks on the patio and tiki bar, or go upstairs and go to the little club.
It’s also probably the easiest place to find parking in Middletown, because there’s a parking garage right across the street.

New menu and chef are fantastic. Can’t wait to try everything on the menu. Ravoli, lobster mac, and burger have all been fantastic. and… Brooke is the best!

We experience a wonderful dinning experience at the Mezzo Grille, from food to customer service. We were especially pleased with the level of service we received from our waiter Devon who provided Total Customer Satisfaction.

The bouncers can be unreasonable and disrespectful. However, the managers are personable and provide great service.

The patio/​tiki looked great. The TV setup behind the bar was amazing and huge (Several tvs placed together to get a larger image), and the inside was spacious and looked great. The prices were great and I don’t have a whole lot of complaints. I’m very close to bumping this up to a four star rating as I write this; however, the service was pretty lousy.
There were about 4 people in the bar and the bartender gave us practically no attention and seemed more interested in her cell phone.

Nice patio, but we’ve been here for an hour and no service. Waitress finally came by once, brought menus, and hasn’t come back for 20 mins. Made obvious eye contact twice… just ignored us. It’s a party of 9. Service at the bar wasn’t blatantly rude, but not nice by any stretch of the imagination.
Outside bartender, she was very dismissive. Most of our party left annoyed. The couple that stayed said the apps came out cold.
Yes, it was busy. …but it’s always busy on the weekends… figure it out.
A year ago things seemed different. I can’t recommend this place unfortunately. If you want the outside environment go to Eli Cannons instead.

I’m making a list as we eat …
Walked in and asked to be seated on the patio. It’s dumpy. A very loud Vegas-​style lounge singer was playing. Too chilly outside, so we moved inside.
Tried to use one of the bathrooms. No TP. Went to another. Not too clean, and the door opens right into the bar where a bunch of men were gathered.
Sat at the table. Waitress came to take order. Didn’t know anything about the beers. Hubby got a sample. I ordered hard lemonade with Grey Goose, which the menu said I could get in a flavor. No dice. I was served lemonade with Stoli instead. Waited quite a while for her to come back. Hubby still hasn’t placed beer order.
She finally came back. I ordered salmon and asked to swap rice for potatoes. She said she thought there would be an up-​charge of «like $ 2 or something; I’m not sure.»
Oy, the lounge singer just moved inside and is serenading. Ugh.
Food was ok. Good, but non-​descript. Hubby had a burger and thought it was good. Portions were large. Service got a little better once we were beyond the drinks.
2 stars because of the experience. Food is 3.

My fiancé and I stopped here for lunch today and I doubt we will be back.
We got seated right away on the back deck, which is where all of the other diners were seated as well. Once we sat down we waited 10 minutes for our server to come over to us. Since we had waited so long before being greeted we already knew what we wanted and placed our order. My fiancé also ordered a beer, which took another 10 minutes to be brought to him. Our food (which was two chicken sandwiches) took over an HOUR to come out. The waitress apologized a few times for the food taking so long and blamed it on the kitchen being «slammed» because all of the tables came at the same time. Yes, it’s called lunch time. And since I had an hour to sit around while waiting for my food (and hungrily watching others get their food) I can tell you exactly how many people were there. There were 17 people there, including us. One table of 8, one of 3, and three of 2. And every single person ordered a sandwich, a burger, or a salad. There is no reason that any of those things should take an hour to be cooked, even with the table of 8. If your kitchen can’t handle 17 orders without the kitchen being backed up for an hour, you need to hire more staff.
Aside from the food taking forever to come out, the waitress only came back every 20 minutes or so to check on drinks. My fiancé had to flag her down several times. All I had to drink was water and I never got a refill. We also got no utensils or napkins. I had to ask twice for napkins and by the time they were brought to me I had resorted to using the cocktail napkin that my drink was on instead.
I will say that the server was nice and attempted to apologize for the ridiculously long wait, as well as comped one of my fiancé’s drinks for us. The food was fine but nothing special and definitely not worth the hour wait.

Stopped in for lunch this past Friday, was quite as it was good Friday but a nice place to have a few beers and cups of New England Clam Chowder. Had a different flavor to it than I’m used to, but was still good none the less. Would definitely come back and specially when it’s a little warmer and the back porch opens up.

Terrible service and horrid bathrooms. I mean horrid. Pee all over the floor, clogged toilets, lack of bathrooms period. I literally try to avoid going, but it’s hard when you are drinking. I have slipped several times on pee. No toilet paper, and awful smell. I cannot believe no one has called the health department by now! Drinks are very expensive and there are barley ever any decent specials. We only go in the summer for the outdoor area, but avoid going at all costs period. The faux nightclub is disgusting! If you want to go to a real nightclub, this isn’t it.

Came here with a friend who wanted to try the $ 12.95 dinner special.
We ended up getting the Steakhouse burgers instead. Great burgers. Covered in bacon, cheese, and a Guinness steak sauce. My mouth is watering for another one already.
½ price wine bottles at least on Wednesday night when I was there. Solid wine list and their craft beer list included some solid microbrewery choices.
This place is off the main Main Street drag but only seconds walk and worth stopping in.
They only had one waitress for the entire dining room. Even though I tried to be polite and convivial towards her, she never warmed up. Wasn’t sure if she even wanted to be there but it left me feeling like I was bothering her every time we had a request.
Overall, I’ll be back. They have a great happy hour specials from 4pm — 7pm and Wednesday 9pm –12pm is ladies night where ladies drink free and I heard there is a great dance floor up stairs. I’ll have to check it out.

Shit service, warm beer. Food sucks. If I could give less than 1 star I would
And the bathrooms are like truckstop bathrooms. Never seen them clean
Avoid avoid avoid

Decided to walk Main Street Middletown looking for a spot to enjoy a drink on a drizzly Friday night with my wife. Original thought was to head to Eli’s, but the place was packed beyond belief and felt more like a frat party. I like’s me some Eli Cannons, but not when it’s like that. So we walked up and down Main Street before seeing the Mezzo Grille peeking out from a side street… Thought we would give it a try.
I can’t speak to the food, but wife and I agreed that this is a great spot for a drink whether you are looking for a craft brew or mixed drink. Bar area is nice and open, and while there was a good crowd (we showed up at the same time as a pub crawl), you didn’t feel crowded. Have a cool wall of TVs at the bar as well if you want to catch a game (or 9 I guess… they have a 3×3 matrix of TVs going). Nice amount of craft beer choices. There was also a guy playing acoustic guitar in the dining room doing 80’s /​90’s era rock /​pop. Right up our alley.
Great nightcap to close out the night. Would definitely hit up again in the area.

DO NOT GO HERE FOR FOOD!
I don’t speak much Italian, but if Mezzo means ‘mediocre’, then this place doesn’t even qualify for its namesake. We went out on a limb on a Saturday evening and tried Mezzo. I figured that since we’ve tried all te other Italian places in the vicinity, why not give this place a chance… big mistake. This has to be the worst dining experience I’ve ever had in my life. We arrived around 6:30 on a Saturday night… prime time for dinner. There appeared to be approximately 5 or 6 waitresses working. When we got there, half of the tables were empty, but they said there was a 30 minute wait. We thought that was a bad sign, but stuck it out and ordered a beer at the bar. When we finally got seated (at a table that was empty the entire Time we were waiting) our waitress didn’t come to the table for 10 minutes. We ordered our meals, and we never saw her again. No one came to our table again until the food showed up 30 minutes later, delivered by one of the kitchen staff. When we got our food, we had no silverware. The hostess said that we didn’t have any because it was all dirty. We finally got the kitchen staff to find us some forks (they still couldn’t find clean knives). My $ 16 chicken fettuccine Alfredo sauce was very clearly just from a jar, no flavor, and served room temperature. The couple ¼″ wide strips of chicken were certainly not worth the $ 3 up charge. This was bad, but not terrible. My wife ordered the shrimp & capellini. Absolutely disgusting. What was supposed to be an EVOO white wine garlic sauce was … No sauce at all. The red onion and baby spinach was a pile of nastiness on plain cold pasta. One bite, and this thing was headed for the trash. I had to search the restaurant for our waitress. I told her that the shrimp dish was inedible, and she took it off the bill without question. Almost as if she had heard that before. I paid our bill and left. I’m not sure what kind of management this place has, but they clearly do not have waitstaff, hostesses, or kitchen staff that are properly trained for jobs in the food service industry. I believe I saw the manager every once in a while, and he appeared to be telling customers that the wait was very long and many of the left. I wish I did the same. I think Mezzo should eliminate their dinner menu’s and focus primarily on drinks. On another note, the place was nice inside. Modern/​Industrial looking inside, with an awesome outdoor patio. It could be a great restaurant, but not at this point. Don’t go there unless you are just getting drinks.

A little bit of everything for any kind of night,
You may want to dance, drink, and feel alright.
Or maybe you want craft beer in a tiki bar,
Like live music? There’s usually a guitar.
This is usually the spot we take our friends when they want to get dressed up and «go out» in downtown Middletown. Decent dance floor upstairs. Usually filled with minglin’ singles but sometimes overtaken by weirdos. There was a tiki bar outside that caught fire last year, so now it’s a regular outdoor bar area with a patio and a stage for live musicians. No more straw hut. Also a big bar inside with a decent craft beer selection. No happy hour specials, which kind of stinks since it says otherwise on the website.
Had a chance tonight to finally sample the food. It was BOGO Tuesday, so one of our two entrees was free. This deal goes until 10pm, and our wallets were happy. I got a NY Strip Steak which came topped with mushrooms and onion rings. The sauce was delicious but the steak was a bit dry. Girlfriend got the Shrimp Campellini, which I wouldn’t recommend; virtually no taste and overloaded with raw onions and huge chunks of roasted garlic. Meal came with a salad which was great. It was mixed with pecans, feta cheese, mandarins, and a house vinaigrette; very fresh. Also got bread which was the opposite of fresh.
Service was extremely slow but the waiter was nice and we were in no rush. Will be back for the nightlife and not the eats. Should be jumpin’ in the summer when they open up all the windows!

I came here and had a few brews on tap, along with an appetizer. I had the 860, Lagunitas and Third Shift. I tried their Mozzarella balls. They were more like patties (unlike the ones in the photo on Unilocal). I thought they were okay, not too bad. They were not burnt, pretty easy to chew on. The bartender was hot and sexy as hell, and she was actually pretty good at serving me. My host/​server was very very sweet as well. She was quick and very accommodating. Our table was set up when I asked to be seated at a booth, and she refilled our drinks and checked up on us appropriately.
So I hear they have a Jazz night here? I will definitely be back! Three stars because the mozzarella cheese was okay, and the beer selection was okay (not extensive for eclectic beer drinkers). I wanna check out this Jazz night, which I have not yet, so I can’t give a review on sound quality and what not.