Grand Central Hotel & Grill

My wife and I have grown to love the Flint HIlls and decided to book a stay at Clover Cliff Ranch about 15 miles away for our anniversary. From earlier travels we knew a little about Grand Central, just enough to book a reservation and have a steak for supper. We've both spent plenty of time in small towns and on a Wednesday night to boot, our expectations going in were tempered.Our meal was absolutely fantastic and we were quickly ashamed of our low expectations. The service was great. The spinach artichoke dip had huge, freshly cooked chunks of artichoke. The salad was average but who cares. The steak came and blew us away. Each of our filets were a perfect medium rare with just the right level of salt. My wife chose to top hers with the shrimp and mushrooms and bragged how fresh and perfectly cooked the shrimp were. Her broccoli was steamed with great attention and cooked just enough but not too much. I chose the steak fries and anticipated the kind dumped frozen out of a bag. Nope - clearly a whole large baking potato cut into 6-8 pieces and fried perfectly. Crunchy, salty outside and soft inside. Wow. It was an amazing meal to add to a memorable trip.

I both stayed at the hotel and ate dinner at the restaurant. In my opinion, the hotel experience is two stars. The restaurant experience is four stars. Add them together and split the difference: three stars.The plusses about the hotel are that it looks cute and has themed rooms. The lobby is very cozy, with comfy couches and a little bar off to the side in a corner. (Fun fact: The bar at Grand Central Hotel was the first operating bar in this town!) It's a pet-friendly hotel. You also get warm muffins and coffee at breakfast time. The minuses about the hotel: Someone had used the restroom in the bathroom in my room and didn't flush. When I tried to flush, it wouldn't. So I asked for a new room, of course. In my new room, the TV didn't work (which was no big deal because I don't watch TV anyway) and the door wouldn't lock. So I went downstairs and talked to the person in charge, and she muttered something like, "Kids these days don't know how to get into a hotel room without a key card." I was like, um? I don't know how young or stupid you think I am, but I'm not too young or stupid to know how to operate a lock. (Also: Thanks for thinking I'm young!) It turns out that you need to jerry-rig the knob to lock it. If you need to finesse a lock in order for it to work, it sounds like you need to replace the lock, or come up with a different system.However, later that night, I had the pleasure of eating at the hotel restaurant. The Grand Central Grill is definitely the place to eat in the area. I got the chicken fried steak, which is a Kansas specialty and served here Friday and Saturday nights only. It came with mounds of mashed potatoes and gravy, and it was one of the best dishes I had in south central Kansas. The Caesar salad was just OK (the dressing came poured on the top and not mixed, which it should be), but the chicken fried steak made up for that. They have a decent wine list for a small town, which was appreciated by me. The service was great, and even though they were busy, our server was very attentive and we got everything we needed.

Reading the other reviews and based on our experience, I think a better dinner is probably had when you make a reservation. Apparently they only schedule servers to work if people make reservations. We came with a party of 5 on a not busy Thursday night. Another table of 4 came in after us. It took 20 mins to get water, 45 mins to get other drinks, and a full hour for salads to arrive. We finally got entrees about 90 mins in. The food was good, but not worth waiting over and hour and a half, especially it was impossible to get drinks refills while we waited. The French onion soup was good and house salad fresh. I had what the menu said was pork tenderloin, but I was served a pork chop. I ordered medium well and it showed up with a raw center. I sent it back and the cooked pork was pretty good. The braised onions were weird and mashed potatoes dry. My kids had pasta and the portion size was small. One dining companion had a burger. He was the most pleased with his meal of anyone at the table. For a $100 dinner, I expect much better service and food.

I was at this restaurant last week. The food was excellent, the waitress was okay, but the owner was terrible! This is the second time I have encountered this woman at the restaurant. I thought maybe she was just having a bad day the first time I encountered her. Evidently, that's not the case! She acts like she is being put out to serve you. Frankly, with her lousy attitude, I don't know how she stays open!

In a town of 900 people you don't have a lot of dining options. This was a nice surprise for lunch. The interior was like a step back into the old west. And there were a couple of old-timers playing Cribbage in the corner. I thought that was quaint. The Reuben sandwich that I had was spot on. The service was a little slow but that's OK.next time I am Cottonwood Falls I wouldn't mind stopping here for dinner. It looks like they have a full dinner menu too.

Always be here with the family while visiting. Love fillet muffin extra rup, medium that perfect cook with loaded baked potato. Always hungry!!! Tastes!!!!

The service as slow as could be, took 30+ minutes from the time we ordered to the time our food was brought out. Two burgers and a grilled cheese and one other table who had already been served should not have slowed down the service that much. We were ignored by our waitress throughout the entire visit and was thankfully helped by another waitress. The only keeping me from only giving one star was that the food was actually pretty good once it finally arrived.

We were rather disappointed after all the hype we had read. The Ceasar salad was just a hunk of regular lettuce, not romaine as it should have been. Their menu even said it has romaine lettuce. The french onion soup is just beef broth with bouillon added to it. No real onions at all, just dried minced onions out of a seasoning jar. It was extremely salty. The cracked pepper and brandy sauce was extremely salty as well. There was no cracked pepper, only a hint of regular pepper. Couldn't finish either one. The dinner rolls were microwaved slider buns with old, runny margarine. The water boy walked by 3 times as our glasses set empty. You can tell he has no desire to be at his job. However, the steaks, I must say, were perfect.

We checked in at 3:00pm and were warmly greeted by the staff. We stayed overnight in the "Turkey Track" room which includes two queen beds. The room is located on the 1st floor and has a 12-foot ceiling. It was nice and warm and ready for us to use when we arrived. We had dinner reservations at 5:00pm, which gave us time to unpack and settle in the room. Dinner was a wonderful, we ordered KC strips and LOVED the steaks! The steak portion was more than generous. Also, the mixed green salad was perfect! The beds were comfortable. We enjoyed the gracious toiletries, they felt and smelled wonderful on the skin. The towels were fluffy and fresh, and the shower had plenty of water pressure as well as enough hot water on hand to last us both. In the morning we had a light continental breakfast which consisted of coffee, juice and bagels. It was enough for us to start the day with and prepare to visit the local sites. Our dogs Skippy & Trixie had this to say:The staff was happy to meet us and gave us plenty of compliments. We loved the room, especially the paver-bricked patio where we enjoyed sniffing all the new outdoor aromas. It kept us entertained. The room had plenty of space to roam and play with our toys. Mom and Dad had dinner reservations and we were able to come too! We had to be on our very best behavior and mindful of other diners. So they can continue allowing this privilege for future dog visits. We were secure in our dog carriage which gave us a great view of everything that was going on. Mom and Dad got to take a doggie bag back to the room. Were we dined on the best steak ever! Dad stored the remainder of the steak in the little fridge in the room and we also had it for breakfast (Yum Yum). We had a good night's rest and were ready to explore the new day. This place is a FIVE PAWS UP time for all our furry friends!

Good steaks, good price, good service: but I can't recommend anyone visit this restaurant. The hostess does NOT wear a mask and we were told by a staff member that the management didn't let them unless it was requested by a customer.So you have to get by a maskless hostess/manager/owner--- that is breaking the governor's mandate--- to walk through a place where NO staff is wearing a mask. This is unbelievable. Risk one's life for a meal?