View, fare at Yards Grille shine among Green Lakes
By Julie McMahon
One of Central New York’s crown gems is Green Lakes State Park – and nestled in the hill south of Green Lake itself is Yards Grille, a restaurant that helps make the whole place sparkle.
Yards Grille has one of the best views around, and the whole dining experience from the food to the drinks to the service helps make this a spot you want to visit. The restaurant can be found at the park’s golf course entrance, where you can avoid paying the park entrance fee.
It’s worth noting that for $10 a car, you can purchase a day pass and proceed further into the state park, home to two glacial lakes with hiking trails, playgrounds and a beach for swimming. The park is beautiful and the green-blue color of the lakes is spectacular, a must-see for anyone living in or visiting the area.
The restaurant offers a different, but also spectacular view of Green Lake. Get there at the right time and you’ll be seated outside on the edge of the terrace overlooking the lake. We happened to be seated a bit further away outdoors but still enjoyed peaking over at the lake and taking in the scenery before and after dinner. The restaurant also offers indoor seating.
We started the meal off with drinks: a Blue Lemonade ($9.75), tart and strong, made with blueberry syrup and Platinum 7X vodka, and a Bloody Mulligan ($13), served with pickle-onion-salami garnish, and lime and celery seed salted rim.
The Bloody Mulligan, made with housemade Bloody Mary mix, was one of many drinks named with a nod to the neighboring golf course, and a reminder that Yards Grille is open for breakfast every day. The restaurant offers a breakfast sandwich on the menu for dinner as well.
To start, our server recommended Brussels sprouts for an appetizer, and we went for it.
These were not your grandmother’s Brussels. They were greasy, saucy and somehow also crispy. Somehow the giant sprouts were larger than any I’d encountered before, and altogether the serving size was massive. Each bite was a salty, gooey and crunchy delight.
The appetizer was delivered very fast, and overall, the service was good, very speedy. There were lots of servers from the hostess station at the front of the restaurant to the bus staff. All the servers were attentive and willing to check in if we needed something or finished a plate.
The ambience was wonderful, with the view of course being the highlight. Beyond some mild chatter, we were able to enjoy the serene setting. The restaurant itself is a stone building with nature as its backdrop.
As we prepared to order and chatted with our server, she noted Yards Grille was known for its burgers and Waldorf chicken salad. We opted for a Juicy Lucy burger ($15) and the Seared Scallops entrée ($32), which both arrived before we’d finished the appetizer.
The Juicy Lucy was made of two smash burgers, so they were well done, thoroughly cooked patties. The restaurant’s special sauce was mustardy — and with every bite you got a taste of the sauce, cheddar, pickles and bacon. The cheese formed a crust around the burger that gave it extra texture. The burger was served with simple potato chips and was overall what you’d expect or better from a pub-grill setting.
The scallops were perfectly cooked. They were served with a salad dressed with preserved orange peel, a nice light and summery touch that blended well with the orange-ginger beurre blanc it was served with.
Our server noted the menu changed recently so even for those who have been before, there might be something seasonal to try.
The scallops were delicious, a typical-sized serving, enough to fill you up with an appetizer and for us, dessert.
We couldn’t pass up the strawberry shortcake ($14) on the menu, especially after we saw a generous helping delivered to another table. (We also saw a serving of the chocolate cake and were almost swayed into getting two desserts but we stuck to the one.)
The shortcake was scrumptious — this was your grandmother’s strawberry shortcake. It was made up of a large housemade biscuit sliced in half, a massive heap of mascarpone mousse whipped topping and of course, fresh cut strawberries.
Everything was great about this dessert, though we noted there could have been a bit more moisture, perhaps by the basil oil advertised on the menu (which we didn’t detect much of on the plate), or even by mashing the berries up a bit and letting the juices settle.
Either way, the strawberry shortcake was excellent, and topped off a very good meal, for about $100, in an even better setting.
Yards Grille
315-632-6015
Lunch: Seven days a week from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Dinner: Monday – Thursday: 4-8 p.m.; 8-9 p.m. (tavern menu); Friday – Saturday: 4-9 p.m.; Sunday: 4-8 p.m.
Green Lakes State Park. 5648 Green Lakes Park Drive, Fayetteville, NY 13066