Address: 1615 N. Mountain Ave.Upland, CA 91784
909.981.2924
The Basics: Located in an unassuming shopping center on one of Upland’s main street, you’ll surprisingly find among bagel shops, Chinese food, nail salon and grocery stores, “Graziano’s Sports Bar, Lounge & Restaurant”. For all Inland Empire/ Upland residents, the unexpected location of this joint is rather convenient. “Graziano’s” is definitely not the place to go if you wanna party like crazy… it’s more of a hang-out-and-drink kind of place. It’s apparently the after-work hang out joint where locals stop by after work on their way home a echarse unas chelas con los cuates.
For the most part you can say “Graziano’s” is more of a dude place, a manly-mans spot… after all, it is the place to be during games, fights, and stuff like that.
So if you’re a girl prepare yourself for an evening filled with flirting and flattering compliments. Now if you’re a guy, pero juegas para el otro equipo- even if you’re not queertastic, loud, out and proud- prepare for some awkwardness and snobby glares from insecure dudes. While the staff is somewhat friendly, the ambiance can be at times a tad uncomfortable- that is, unless you’re comfortable with guys and grown men acting like kindergarteners or hermits.
Now that’s the “Sports Bar/ Lounge” section of “Graziano’s”, which is separate from the “restaurant”, which happens to be almost the polar opposite of the “bar/ lounge” area.
If you’re thinking of stopping by “Graziano’s Restaurant”, you’ll find a pleasant family vibe and lots of that Italian homey affection.
What to drink: If you’re in it for the drinks, you’ll enjoy their happy hour since they have really awesome deals on beer on tab and well done drinks. They have a wide selection of beers, and for all beer lovers out there, there’s even “Blue Moon”. No hay pierde con el “Hennessy and coke”… it’s truly well done. Eso sí, well done drinks tend to be a little heavy on the ice.
What to eat: Just like any other Bar/ Lounge/ Restaurant combo joints, “Graziano’s” enjoys the perks of being part of a restaurant. However, it does not share the same kind of service. The bartender doubles up as server, and as busy as the place might get or as empty as it might be, food service is rather slow- unless you consider waiting for about twenty minutes for some bland cheese sticks straight out of the freezer.
There are all sorts of items to choose from, but being in a bar, it makes more sense to go for the finger food-type of items. So even if pasta sounds good, you would think que con una pizza you can’t go wrong.
At “Graziano’s”, apparently you can.
It’s not that the pizza is bad, because it’s not totally horrible. You have to keep in mind, even if all the ingredients aren’t 100% natural and organic, the pizza is after all made fresh as you order.
However, there’s nothing great to rave about other than the fact that it’s brought to you fresquecita, straight out of the oven. Aside from that, their pizza is rather bland, there’s hardly any tomato sauce, thus you end up eating dry pizza, and the dough… well, the dough- while it’s thin and crispy, it’s also burnt at some parts and bland in all of them.
Again, the pizza at “Graziano’s” just serves its purpose of giving you something to munch on while you hang out with the cuates. Nothing more, nothing less… just your typical barely-edible bar food.
