The Library Bar and Grill

I've always loved Zak's Waterside sinceit first opened. The food is always top notch for a burger joint, the location is great, esp6if it's warm enough to sit outside and enjoy one's food beside the river with the magnificent Cow Tower overlooking you.

+5

Me and my nanny often visit zaks when I come down. The food is always amazing, and very generous portions. Our favourite wait staff is Mandy, she is always so friendly and has a chat with us and so quick with orders! Today, she was on her own in the restaurant but it didn't affect service or her positive attitude at all! Always a pleasure to come to zaks for great food and excellent service!

Always top food and top service, never let's us down

We had an amazing experience at the Riverside branch after being turned away from Poringland branch. The food was amazing and so was the staff. The atmosphere was very loud for my partner who wears hearing aids and I noticed there was a little baby on the other table who couldn’t settle down not sure why but I assumed the very loud music was disturbing. Overall it was amazing!!

Had a great time at Zaks. Food was excellent. The house French fries are some if the best ever, the burgers are cooked to order perfectly. I'd especially recommend the blue cheese burger but it was a difficult choice as they offer so many great sounding burger options. We tried the fried pickles (frickles) and cheese churros as well and both were very tasty. Staff are friendly and attentive. Atmosphere, music and decor are all perfect for an American Diner experience.

Over the past 14 years of living in Norwich visiting Zak’s has been “our place” Every birthday, celebration and just because has seen us enjoy the hospitality and good eats that Zak’s provides with ease. I’ve eaten every burger on their menu and enjoyed every float, I’ve not only made a mess of myself with the those darn good ribs but I’ve enjoyed watching my children do the same year after year. It may seem trivial enjoying such a thing but growing up with no family or any type of tradition it means a great deal to have constant to remember so many good occasions by. So after being unable to really enjoy eating out for well over a year at the first opportunity I booked a table, Sarah (my wife) and I had not had any type of date night in such a long time because of what we’ve all being going through and where better to book first than Zak’s ! I honestly wasnt sure what to expect as it’s billed as having to dine outside. We arrived, hats coats and gloves at the ready wondering if I should have bought a duvet but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the effort put into making the dining experience as pleasant as possible. First thing you see is a Zak’s caravan wafting some amazing smells into the air ! Friendly staff led us around to the outdoor seating area where we were met with warm patio heaters and comfortable seating and space oh the joy, a really good evening. Amazing food, as good as ever.

Great place to come for a burger, never dissapoints. 18 types of chargrilled burgers, amongst other grills and hotdogs ~ my favourite is the 'Meltdown burger' Got to have the curly fries.. Really nice restaurant inside, american themed, good music played in the background (jukebox classics 👍). Was lucky today ~ had two for one on the burgers 🍔 our go to if fancying something for a change 👍 Lovely friendly staff. Parking at Zaks grill and bar on barrack Street is a little small!! highly advise to book a table as its very popular here.

Enjoyable food and great service. The style and theme of the restaurant is great with lots of interesting details. The staff are very knowledgeable and helpful with regards to intolerances. Would recommend the classic burger!

Lovely breakfast, plenty of options and really great value. Lovely service and atmosphere.

There's a choice of Zak's in the area and this one often gets overlooked. Parking is very limited, but there are a few spaces if you time it right. The restaurant is compact but is much less noisy than the Mousehold one. Service was great, prompt and friendly. The hot wings were just right. My burger was nicely cooked with plenty of flavour. It's great to see some creative burgers on the menu. I'm also a fan of a coke float so it was great to see that on the menu too. The bill was reasonable given how much we had ordered. Give the place a try if you are in the area, I think it's a worthy stop (throw in some potato tots while you are at it)

Value for money is amazing here. Wing it Wednesday is well worth a visit. Start with 8 wings, fresh meaty free range double wings, not processed from a freezer. Then they just keep co ing in multiples of 4, and you chose your flavours. The staff are really friendly

Delicious food. Great portion sizes. An all American theme in the restaurant and on the menu. Service was slow with two small children but we like to get in, fed and leave before they cause to much chaos. If you're not in a rush then it's fine.

A great little diner, great food and friendly staff. Portion sizes good and good was served hot. Good quality ingredients.

Very sweet staff who took care of us the whole night. Very easy to make reservations here for any kind of group event. Special menu for people with dietary restrictions or those who are vegetarian or vegan. The food was incredibly filling--very big portions. To top it all off, it is incredibly well decorated inside, with lots of fun retro American memorabilia.

Always swiftly served with great food. Atmosphere is always so cozy and I love the aesthetic of the place. The milkshakes are to die for!

Great food and service at a very reasonable price 👍🏻 There's parking out the front and just enough spaces for the restaurant.

Great atmosphere, wonderful food, friendly staff reasonably priced. Well worth a visit. Blue cheese dip was amazing!

An amazing spot to enjoy the sun! The setting with the castle and the river is stunning. The staff are all so friendly, smiley and helpful! We love hot food but the chilli was way too spicy. Also recommend melting the cheese on the burgers and nachos. We appreciated the attention to detail on the vegan and vegetarian menus!! Thank you!

Wish I could give six stars. One of the best vegan menues in the UK right now. Huge variety, fresh, delicious and the service was top notch too with very friendly and helpful wait staff. Also yummy drinks, also a beautiful view of the historic Norwich riverside, highly recommended.

The food there was great! The curly fries with cheese were so delicious and mouth-watering! I’d recommend going there instead having dinner at home! (If wanted to)

Great place to eat reasonably priced, they also sell wine, lager and ale. There portions are a good size so you get your money's worth.

Had a very good lunch here. Food and service was great. Had the Godfather with curly fries Just not enough space for all five pancakes.

Very good place to eat. Staff are helpful and polite And as always I ordered more than I could eat. but it still didn't break the bank. Only downside is I think they've changed the coleslaw and its not as good as last time.

We normally treat ourselves to this place once every other month and never fails to deliver in quality and value. This time we thought of treating ourselves to the milk shakes and wow! (Peanut butter and strawberry) more like a dessert than a drink, tasty..

Great hearty food choices, great service

Parking is terrible (had to wait for a space), but the actual location is great, food is amazing, staff are friendly and helpful. Atmosphere is loud (music and other patreons) but manageable.

The waitress was friendly and efficient. The tables were clean and smart, the food was delicious. It was very quiet when we came in today but the service was very good and I’d come back for the food for sure. Well done team! Thank you

The burgers are absolutely delicious and it’s a lovely atmosphere and the service was really good I will definitely come back

Wings Wednesday 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽. All you can eat wings. Many fantastic flavours and the waitresses kept then coming until we couldn't eat any more.

We are a family of 6 and our food and drinks bill when we go out is invariably £150+, at Zaks we had spent the same, had good american diner style food, but the portions we're generous. Will definitely visit again when in Norwich

Food was great, no complaints there, and what a bargain on 2 for 1 days. Unfortunately the older brunette lady that served us was incredibly rude and had no customer service or manners. Massive thank you to the younger lady who rectified our incorrect bill as soon as she noticed without us even having to ask.

This was the first time I had seen Zaks waterside in daylight and was in for a shock as I didn’t realise they also served breakfast until 11:00hrs at weekends which is a fantastic choice, the only thing that lets them down on there breakfast is the lack of options on the menu 7 choices all very large dishes as can be seen on the pictures. Once inside Zaks we where greeted straight away and discovered we where the only customers in the restaurant. This was a shame as the restaurants has options to expand and get more footfall through the door for breakfast. The refillable filter coffee ( thankfully not from a machine like some restaurants ) and tea is a always a winner. Breakfast was very quick to turn up, however if the restaurant had have been full with only 2 waiting staff and one chef I think the wait would have been a bit longer. All in from the time we entered to choosing to receiving our food we waited no longer than 20 minutes . Portion size is great, bigger than J D Weatherspoons and a few other local nearby places. Quality of the food was good as well. The sausage patty was good quality fried eggs cooked to order , however I think the pancakes may have been the microwave ones as I noticed whilst eating them cold patches in them yet they where still cooked. Staff are fantastic and a definite reason to go back. They smiled throughout where attentive but also left us to talk in private at the same time. The building itself looks like it needs some TLC in respect of decorating. Admittedly they are probably open 7 days of the week 9am until 10pm but I would recommend maybe closing for one or two breakfast shifts to bring in the decorators . As you will see by one of the pictures I took a wall which is meant to be white has gone yellow with damp which means it can’t be healthy to work in for 9hrs a day or for customers to eat there food near. All in all this is a good restaurant that I would have no hesitation recommending to family and friends alike and would hope to see them get there internal redecorating up to date. I spoke to one of the waitress on the way out and she said the restaurant has been the same as long as she can remember.

+1

Lovely views of the river and Cow Tower from a nice outside seating area. Very pleasant staff but were informed of my onion allergy and then brought out food with spring onion all over it. The burgers were really good and we were not waiting very long. The spare ribs were apparently very succulent and tasty but as they were sprinkled with spring onion l wouldn't know. Not too expensive. Would definitely recommend.

We stopped at Zaks for breakfast during a recent stay in Norwich and loved the place. They have a small parking area outside and no doubt the place is popular amongst the local students in the evenings but the overall setting next to the river and choice of both American and English breakfasts was lovely.

Good food and service. Would not go to celebrate something special. But if just to eat it's delicious food. We had chicken / rib combo. Ribs was the best we have ever tried. Didn't like the coleslaw.

A few years ago, going to Zak's was an experience, the burgers were amazing, glasses were frozen and the staff buzzing. This has clearly changed, the food was ok, the 2 lonely pieces of processed cheese on a burger was upsetting as were the tiny, end of the bag fries. The Caesar Salad with Halloumi was small but the courgette fries were great. We ordered cocktails, I asked for the long island iced Tea, (to share or not does not, it seem mean 2 sizes) the server did not let me know that this was only in sharing size and a bowl of iced tea arrived, I said that I was expecting a normal sized one and was told , that's the only size we do. I would have been ok with that had the drink had the kick I would expect from this cocktail, it was vaguely flavoured overpowered by the coke. The staff were indifferent which made a birthday meal disappointing. Maybe this was just a bad day at the waterside.

+1

Now you don't come here for the gourmet cuisine. but it hits the spot with me and the kids each time! Young and friendly staff means you get great service, try anything on the menu JUST HARD PASS on the milkshakes which are the weakest in Norwich (By this i mean they are thin and not thick shakes- if you like the best thick shakes you go to Five Guys!) Great burgers though- my favourite is the Maverick (mostly becusee I can make Top Gun gags through out the meal) definitely try with the fam-a-lam!

Dejavu Once upon a time, like 30 years ago, I was in a third world country where I ordered burger and fries. The burger was very ordinary but the fries were excellent. Fast forward, at Zaks restaurant, exactly the same experience. Evidence is in the picture. Ordinary beef patty, the kind you can find at Burger King. Location is nice, margaritas were good and so were the nachos.

Love the venue and vibe. Bit of a mixed opinion on the food, ribs are really nice and breakfast is not too bad, but I do unfortunately think its taste and quality has gone down slightly in the last few years. The chicken bacon cheese meal is just far too heavy/greasy and cheesy unfortunately!

Edit after reply (unsure if it will still be there after editing): I'm honestly really disappointed with this response from Zak's. To say that staff moved us to a table with 2 other tables available nearby is blatantly false. We were moved from one 8 person table to another, and we had to find a member of staff to request the other table we had booked, only to be told there wasn't one anymore, and that we should've booked all at once if we wanted to sit together, which was not what we asked for. Furthermore, our entire party had arrived long before our orders were taken. The last people arrived at around 7:35-7:40, with wait staff completely ignoring us until 8:10. By the time our food arrived, as I say in the main review, it was 8:40, and with the entire experience up til then and the fact they were supposedly closing in 20 minutes, it felt pointless to ask for it to be recooked. ----------------------- I want to preface this review by mentioning that we were a large and slightly awkward party. Due to the maximum booking size we were a table of 8 and a table of 4. I can understand how some confusion could be caused here, but ultimately I don't feel this excuses the service we received. First of all, we arrived at 7:15 and were sat at a table of 8, waiting for the others to arrive, but when they did we were moved to a different table of 8 and then had to ask for our other table, only to find out that it had been given to a walk-in, though we were able to get another table. As I said, we arrived at the restaurant at 7:15, and our order wasn't taken until around 8:15, which isn't the worst wait I've ever had, but definitely longer than it should have been considering that the restaurant wasn't all that busy. Our food arrived at 8:45, which was a little strange seeing as the listed closing time is 9pm, but we were looking forward to enjoying our food. Unfortunately, one of us had ordered a hotdog, which arrived without onions on it, and his wedges did not come with the gravy he ordered. More concerningly, my steak, which I ordered Medium Rare, came entirely Blue, while someone else's came Well Done. The sides were good though. Ultimately, while I understand that a party as large as ours can cause problems, both the service and food were nowhere near acceptable, and far below what I've previously come to expect from Zak's during prior visits. I can only assume there were some problems behind the scenes, and will probably return another day with hopes that this was a fluke.

Very dry and bland burgers, Coleslaw was bland as well Fries were really tasty and crispy specifically curly fries. Chocolate milkshakes were good nothing special. Portion sizes were really good! But nothing special which would make to get back! Sitting outside next to the river was really nice. Took ages for the waitress to bring the bill. Terrible parking area with very limited spaces! Took us 10-15 minutes to wait for one family who were not even customers came from walking next to the river and getting in to the car so, we could park our car! Won’t come back!

Extremely Concerning Experience – Food Poisoning!!! We visited Zak’s Grill & Bar Waterside on Sunday evening and unfortunately had a very upsetting experience. The restaurant wasn’t busy; there were a few other tables occupied, but it was quiet. We were seated near the entrance with our toddler, directly in a freezing cold draft every time the door opened, which was far from ideal. When leaving, the steps up to the car park were fine; however, the incline of the car park itself was extremely slippery, with snow having turned to ice. This felt very unsafe, particularly while carrying a small child. The girl who served us was polite and friendly, though it felt as though our presence was an inconvenience. While she remained courteous, she didn’t seem particularly happy to be serving us. We ordered drinks with no issue. For mains, we both chose the surf and turf burgers. They arrived suspiciously quickly, which immediately raised concerns. Once we started eating, it became clear why !.. the prawns were very cold ice cold, not frozen, but as though they had been frozen and quickly rinsed under a tap before being served. We ate what we could. Shortly after, I began to feel extremely unwell and went to the toilet. There is only one female and one male toilet, and the lack of privacy made an already uncomfortable situation worse. I returned to the table feeling increasingly ill and urgently told my partner we needed to leave immediately. I tapped my debit card to pay and had to turn around amd get out... As soon as we reached the car park, I suddenly projectile vomited. The sickness was violent and uncontrollable. While I continued being sick, my partner went back inside to ask for a cup of water for me. Despite explaining the situation, he was charged £3.50 for a plastic cup of water, which I found shocking and unacceptable. The vomiting continued on the drive home and once home, I was extremely unwell for hours with severe vomiting and diarrhoea. This happened every 40 minutes to an hour until around 11am the following morning. I was convinced I had food poisoning. Sadly, the illness didn’t improve. I continued to feel unwell and eventually saw my GP, who has confirmed that I have food poisoning, traced back to this meal. To charge £65 for food, plus charge for water in these circumstances, is appalling! especially when much of the food clearly did not stay in my body. My partner was also unwell for 24 hours, and our 1 year old son ate there with us, which is frightening to think about. I am deeply concerned by the level of food safety shown. This was our first and last visit to Zak’s Waterside, and I have made family and friends aware of our experience. Do better.

Service only thing good about this place. Hair found in food. Food over cooked . Had brownie with ice cream been in microwave to long. Was hard not soft. Over rated for sure. Was good in 90s gone down hill fast. Will not eat there again. Need to get better cooks some that know what they are doing. Parking not enough spaces.