WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT. Smh
Let's just say my 2 star review is being VERY generous.
For weeks, I had been looking forward to coming here, for a number of reasons.
1.) I Love SB and SB County. I lived in Santa Barbara for years & have great memories of living in the area & surrounding areas, including Santa Ynez, Buellton and Solvang areas.
2.) A very trusted colleague at work recommended this restaurant. Her & her husband come here often, as they deliver classic cars to various cities in the Central Coast. They go to a variety of well known, high to low-end restaurants, so I trust her taste.
3.) I saw that it had been rated over 1,000 times! The variety of reviews were mostly high ratings.
4.) They seem to have a wide variety of foods, including things like fish I don't typically see on menus, rabbit, phesant, kim chi, maitake, specialty pizzas from a nice pizza oven, variety of wines & vegan options.
5.) The restaurant is located near wineries & is in the industrial area of Buellton. The building is graffitied in interesting foods. (see photos of the building itself on the Yelp photos).
6.) Everything seems to be locally sourced and sustainable, which I love.
My husband planned for a short trip for us to come up to Buellton and we were both excited to eat here after all that I told him. We decided to take an Uber so that he can drink and I could have the option of drinking as well. Even on a week night, the place was full (not packed) and had few places to sit, so as soon as we saw an opening I sat down to get seats for us.
Unfortunately, I was unable to tell him exactly what I wanted and even tho he was a few feet from where I sat, he could NOT hear me tell him what I was interested in because the music was too loud. So he ordered me the Tomato Gratin & he ordered two Sausage Fennel pizzas, which seem to be very popular here. I wish he had ordered something more filling for me, like a vegan pizza, or even the cauliflower dish or added a Ceasar salad to go with my "entree".
Let me mention the menu. It's CONFUSING AF. There is one clearly labelled as Sandwiches, Pizza and one "Get In My Belly", which really doesn't tell you much. It is literally just a list of ingredients that go into the dish, and not any real name. It's confusing and a number of reviews mentioned that. I guess it is not worth changing for the restaurant. Honestly, I think it would serve them better if they did or at least added clarification.
What I learned was that there is not a high priority of customer service at this restaurant, and below is my reason for that.
The food was ordered by my husband at 7:07 pm and he got his pizza between 10-12 minutes after. The rest of the food, my Tomato Gratin and the other Sausage Fennel pizza came 40+ minutes later. When he was done with his pizza (that he shared with our nephew, who was really hungry) he asked one of the waitstaff about the rest of the food and instead of being nice and apologetic, she was very curt and said, "Well, you ordered a hot dish, so that's why its taking so long" WOW!!! OK.
NOTHING to the affect of, "Well, I am sorry. Let me look into it. Would you like bread in the mean time?" Nothing. Not even close. So we just sat there, trying to distract my nephew from going ape sh*t since he was so hungry. My husband was simply inquiring about where the rest of our food was.
I have been to TONS of restaurants and this is not the typical answer. Whatever. We still waited. My husband had to say something a 2nd time, but this time to a man who worked there. He tried to down play it too at first and then my husband said, "We ordered all of our food the same time, people who ordered after us got their food before us. We got 1 pizza, and waited another 30 minutes & our food is still not here." Then all of a sudden this prompted more interest. We got the rest of our food closer to 7:50 pm. I know this because his 2nd inquiry was at 7:41 pm.
The food looked beautiful. It smelled amazing. I finally got my tomato gratin, which looked more like a squash dish with the amount of zucchini in it. There was tomato in it, but I would not call it a tomato gratin, still it was delicious, but I wish it was filling. No bread or anything else accompanied it. I would recommend to anyone ordering this to also order something else, as this is definitely NOT enough food for a hungry person, like me.
I think had we had a better experience, we would have stayed longer and spent more money. After we left this establishment we intended on going to Firestone Walker, which was closer to our hotel. Had we known this was going to happen, we would have just walked there and then could walk home with out having paid Uber.
Hopefully, this isn't how this establishment treats their customers, especially after inquiring where there food is after a 40 minute wait. It would have been nice to eat the same time.
Surprise, surprise, we will never come back. It just isn't worth it, literally. read more