There is a reasonably priced wine list, and service is attentive if not the most polished (there was way too much chattiness for me). Executive Chef Darrell Goodman hails from the Houston's chain. The portions are large and the choices are many, including seafood, steak, rotisserie chicken, wood-oven pizzas, dinner-size salads and several daily specials. The golf associations are more overt in the wood-paneled bar, where all the flat screens are tuned to the Golf Channel and golf photos abound, and in a rear dining room, where there are more golf tournament photos, and where the artwork over the mantel is a framed collection of old woods - stuck like arrows into the wall.ĭespite the decor, the PGA Tour Grill follows much the same dining formula as that used by other local upscale casual restaurants, such as the Clyde's Group, Virginia's Great American Restaurants (Sweetwater Tavern, Coastal Flats), Harry's Tap Room and Harry's Essential Grille, and the Yellowfin/Big Fish Grille/Red Sky group out of Annapolis. A montage over one fireplace mantel is all about golf, and a photo mural over the entrance to the main dining room is of the famous island 17th green at the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Here, the golf references are subtle: What look like photos of vegetables along one wall are really tinted close-ups of golf balls a close inspection of flower prints reveals the buds are actually the heads of woods. Sleek halogen chandeliers hang from the soaring ceilings. The main dining rooms are light and bright, with lots of wood and metal accented with watery blues and pale grass greens. The PGA Tour Grill opened in March at a former That's Amore location in Congressional Plaza, though its official debut will be marked over the coming days in association with the Booz Allen Classic, to be held June 22-25 at the Tournament Players Club at Avenel.Īll that's left of the building's old interior are two massive stone fireplaces, built for the original occupant, Shelly's Woodroast. But the idea of the PGA Tour, an association of professional golfers whose events create revenue for its members and for charitable causes, was born on Rockville Pike in 1968.

Rockville Pike might seem an unusual location for a prototype of a national chain restaurant affiliated with the PGA Tour.

Coastal flats shrimp and grits