Gaffer Grille & Tap Room

Great atmosphere! Love the intimate booths! Had the soup du hour — the pumpkin bisque soup with whipped cream! Like eating a liquid pumpkin pie! Good selection of wine and cocktails! Got a cucumber cooler!

Stopped in for a drink and some light fare. Bang bang shrimp were bang bang cold and lost on a plate of lettuce. Chicken taco dip should have been called bean dip with a melted cheese crust. Not sure there was more than a couple pieces of chicken. Disappointing to say the least. Beer was cold and service definitely outshines the food. Sorry, not overly impressed.

We picked this place because it was one of the few places open when we drive into town.
The food was tasty, but I would have preferred more optiot on the menu. I got a burger and it came with fries and a salad. It was a lot of food, but good food!
I would recommend this for dinner at a normal hour. The entrees sounded like they would be pretty good.
I loved the glass themed décor!

Came here after racing in Watkins Glen. Looked cool from the outside so gave it a shot. Pretty overpriced. Food was not great. Had the mixed grill and only ate the risotto as the sausage was so spicy and the chicken had no flavor. The pork and been soup had a strange spice, don’t expect a normal been flavor. Brisket was just beef with BBQ sauce not a real brisket. Ribs were good per the 2 in our group that had them. Service was good and friendly. Cool part of town with lots of other eating opportunities. Will try another place next time.

Came here for a couple of drinks before going out to dinner (different restaurant). Their draft selection is awesome — probably 15 choices of various styles from across the country. Can’t believe Master of Disguise was available — YEE-​haw! I guess they take a dollar off draft beers at the bar for happy hour (4 – 7?). 3 beers came to about $ 13. The bartender really knew how to make some cocktails though — some other patrons were ordering some obscure/​classic drinks that you don’t really here of much these days, and she had no trouble using the cocktail shaker. Really cool bar and building though. Worth stopping at if you’re in the area. Plenty of parking in the area.

Great little place to get food and a drink.
The service was great, and food was superb.

My family of 5 decided to try the Gaffer as the restaurant looked pretty nice and the menu looked fine from the other side.
The service was very poor as the server was inexperienced and untrained. After 30 minutes, the server brought scraps of bread citing the bread was not ready and new batch were coming out soon. Another 15 minutes later, she brought 5 small pieces of bread (bread was not warm).
The presentation of the dishes were of a 2 star restaurant. The quality of the food was just ok and certainly but not representative of a $ 28 – 35 entrees. The hostess/​manager stood and watched the lack of service but did nothing.
Our dining experience was equivalent to a truck stop diner. Of course a truck stop diner would have offered a faster service. We will not return here again. When looking for restaurants on Market street, keep walking until you see Tony R or Sorges!

Great ambiance and décor.
We were on a road trip and wanted a sit down meal. Honestly stopped for Holmes Plate and they were closed. We had Bang Bang Shrimp for an appetizer, it was pretty good even though the seasoning was 99% cayenne. Between us we had a petite sirloin and the Angus burger. Both were very yummy.
Some things on the menu were a little weird to me… Like, why a $ 1.95 upcharge to sub a Caesar salad for the house salad?
Service was fast and pleasant, though we were in before the dinner crowd would have hit.

I wanted to absolutely love this place based on walking by and seeing other diners. We went for dinner where the ambience and décor was perfect. Tables were set apart and some even had coves with woodwork all over. It was gorgeous. We were in the mood for steak so we ordered each asking for different levels of preparedness. I asked for well done and another asked for medium well. Both steaks were rare so I had to send it back because I couldn’t eat it. The second came out closer to well but still had pink. By now I was famished so I ate because I am not typically that picky. The vegetables were really undercooked as well so it was all in the mashed potatoes for the high point for food. The service was excellent as was the selection of local wines. Maybe I just hit an off night but I would select a different entrée if I were to be back in the area.

The Gaffer is certainly consistent. It has a large menu with fair prices and good ambiance. The food is consistently good but not memorable, the drinks are good but pricey.

Very popular, busy place. Food is good — not great but not bad. Service is good — friendly staff — but not as proactive as it could have been (volume of guests could have contributed to that).
Environment is noisy, so conversations have to be at full volume — it’s hard to hear folks even when they’re sitting next to you.
They have bar service, as well.
Good but nothing worth raving about!

My second visit to Gaffer Grille last night. Again asked for seating in a booth. Got the one furtherest back. I don’t know if it was the evening or the location, but much noisier in that position. However, the booths do allow you to carry on a conversation. Booths are a bit dark and we had difficulty reading the menu and the check. He had Jambalaya then Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream for dessert and loved it! My last visit I had an exceptionally good vegetable lasagne and this time I decided to try a steak dinner. Haven’t had steak in years. 6-​inch Black Angus steak (petite sirloin), about 1−¾″ thick. Asked for pink and no blood. That’s what I got. Mashed potatoes, string beans (just right, not mushy). Oh, and a scallop topper on the steak. Three scallops beautifully cooked and seasoned. My dessert – heavenly Gourmet Chocolate Turtle Cake. My dinner was very good, but I didn’t consider it exceptional. I also noticed they don’t garnish entrees – I missed that. My dessert, however, was beautifully presented. We both had decaf coffee and it was very good. Like I said noisy, probably due to a couple of large groups and our location in relation to the bar. Again, great service, personable staff.

I ordered the Jambalaya with orzo, it came with a generous helping of chicken, sausage, shrimp, and peppers. It was pretty good I also ordered the chicken covered with mushrooms which was very bland. I must say my last few times there haven’t been great. The food doesn’t seem to be as good as it used to be. I have been going to other places on market st because the food has been getting worse. This used to be my favorite place on Market st.

Worst place in Corning I have been too. Server was good, food was terrible, waited over 1hr and half. We seen roaches tooling around on the floor. Looked as though the owner was serving alcohol to under age girls at the bar, I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone

Better than average local restaurant. I had the jambalaya and afew glasses of local riesling. Food was good and cooked correctly — usually it is overdone and tough. I didn’t see many local foods — everything seems to be steak and burgers. that seems to be the case jn most restaurants in town though
I would think that there would be more NY state wines on ghe menu by glass. Quite a few bottles of local wineries but that is it.

(Dec. 19^th, 2013)
Ordered this flaming specialty cheese appetizer soaked in brandy that was recommended by the waitress — delicious with bread!
I also ordered the Jambalaya with orzo (seemed to be quinoa to me) that was a unique combination, came with a generous helping of chicken, sausage, shrimp, and peppers. Only complaint was that the chicken had a bit of a strong indescribable chicken flavor that wasn’t the best.

I was here on a Sunday night and the place was pretty busy, which is always good to see. I sat at the bar first, and should have had tried the various beers, but went with my usual mixed drink instead. Bartender was fast and courteous — and took care of my guest as soon as she arrived too! We had reservations at 6:30 but we decided to delay as we were chatting at the bar. When we finally sat down around 7:15 (it wasn’t an issue for them), the service was terribly slow. It took at least 15 minutes for someone to come over so we could order wine, then came back another 7 – 8 minutes later to tell us they were out of that vintage. So we selected another and it to came over a little bit slow as well. So now at least a half hour has passed before we can even order and its now close to 8 p.m. We decided to just go with the appetizers because dinner would just get over with too late. We ordered 3 of them — the lamb (4 small chops), tuna sashimi in wasabi, and the bruschetta. The tuna and lamb was absolutely delicious, but in my opinion the bruschetta was on bread that was way too thick (it was tasty too tho).
Overall I’d give it a 4 stars for food and two stars for wait staff (the bartender gets 4) — so a 3 overall! Mangia!

Good food, great drink selection, friendly staff, and delicious buffalo chicken dip.

Had a great dinner here with a large group last week. I ordered the steakhouse salad and it had french fries in it. You read that right… FRIES. I actually like that. It was surprisingly good too.
The service was fantastic and kept everyone at our table (probably 10 or so) very happy and without complaint.
I would say this is one of the nicer places to eat on Market Street yet very affordable.

I could have had a 5 star experience, but I experienced a 1 star one… all because Tony R’s Steakhouse is closed on Sundays. Damnit! Why do you torture me so, Tony?
Had my stomach not been eating itself from being so hungry, and had I not minded the drive to the restaurant bc of how much I love new (rental) car smell, this would have been a complete waste of time.
I was seated, my order was taken pretty promptly, and I never would’ve guessed it’d take 25 minutes for the bread and salad to come out. Why so long? The hostess in la-​la land taking care of water service went around to other tables to refill glasses throughout the duration of my stay, but mine was left un-​refilled until I asked the waitress. My waitress just came by the table to drop off my plates of food, and I wasted many minutes waiting for her to come back and bring the bill. Oddly enough, she’d wait on her other 3 or so tables, all within 13.5 feet of mine, but just turn around and forget that I was there. At the end of the meal, I flagged down Hostess La La (who saw me sitting there with my car keys and credit card out bc we made eye contact) to go and get my waitress, who I really thought may have fallen in the toilet or something.
The food didn’t do much to make up for the rest of the experience. I was craving porkchop, and the pork medallions were super dry and tough. First clue: took almost 2 minutes to saw through it with my giant knife. Atleast the bread that finally arrived was warm and yeasty, and the $ 10 crabcake was meaty.