WayWard Fox

I was excited to try this place because it reminded me of another restaurant - Piggy Smalls (it’s in Hawaii). Unfortunately, this restaurant did not live up to my expectations. The food is decent. But the restaurant needs to be more organized. It looks understaffed and has poor space utilization.

Loved my first trip to WayWard Fox. You can tell a lot of time and thought went into creating both the food and drink menu. We went with a group of 4 and split small plates. Loved it and will be back. The Korean BBQ fries were my favorite.

I'm really impressed by this place. It's authentically "Gainesville" with sophisticated food. I hope the menu changes over time so that I can see the creativity of the chef with more items. I think the prices are very reasonable and our table of 4 ordered maybe 10 different things to try, loved every bite, and our bill wasn't shocking.

The service was a little disorganized but that's too be expected for a soft open restaurant; I expect it will only get better over time. I will definitely be coming back and I hope Wayward Fox is here to stay. It adds a little something to Gainesville.

We really enjoy Crane Ramen and were excited to try this place out, but it let us down in a few ways. First of all, the food was pretty good--the dishes are creative and tasty, but didn't blow our minds. Alcohol beverages were small for the cost and did not taste great. Now for my biggest gripe. So, this place is counter service, not full service. What is particularly awkward is that the food/drinks are a bit pricey, and you pay upfront and are confronted with a tip line for service (in our case, our bill was $60, so a $12 tip at 20%). How can you tip for service (particularly $12) if you haven't received any yet and it's not full service? You really don't even realize the level of service provided until after you order, when you find out fountain beverages are self-serve and you pick up your own plates/silverware. I have no problem paying a 20% tip for even average service because I know oftentimes wait staff aren't paid a living wage, but this situation was really off-putting. It would help to switch to paying after your meal where you can tip an amount appropriate for the level of service received.

UPDATE 1/10/2020: How cool of the owner to respond and change their process! Thank you! Star added :).

We were slightly worried that there weren’t very many people in the restaurant, boy were we surprised!

This place is the real deal. The family style menu is super fun and encourages the exact sort of exploration that our titular Fox apparently went through himself (ask the staff to hear the beautiful story behind the murals on the walls).

Highly recommended the steak fries and the dumplings. Although you really can’t go wrong, this place is high quality and excitingly creative. A rarity in Gainesville! Try it out!