Ballast Point Brewing Anaheim — Restaurant in Anaheim

First thing, the food was good. I'd happily eat it again. The reason for the low score is 100% based on the overall experience once you get to a table, there's a qr code for the menu, pretty standard nowadays. Then you need to place your order through the website. This means either: each individual orders on their own phone or everyone orders together on one. Either way it requires patrons to organize and coordinate the meal themselves, if they want drinks/appetizers and then a main course. You then pay before the order goes through, including a 20% gratuity. Once the order is placed the drinks and food come out relatively quickly. It all seems simple enough, but it is not. The biggest issue is the total lack of service. There are plenty of employees, particularly the food runners and bussers, but the designated wait staff goes awol for long stints and only comes by once some other staff member has been around. There is no information provided as far as the overall process is concerned, so if you aren't good with mobile stuff you're in trouble. There is also no way to control the pace of the items arriving, because even if you space it or send as separate items it all comes pretty much right away or at least all together. The wait staff will not be around in any significant capacity, no touching the tables throughout the meal. If you need something or have a problem YOU LITERALLY NEED TO CALL A PHONE NUMBER LISTED ON THE WEBSITE. To fix a small problem, after waiting for someone to come by for ten minutes, we called the number and someone came from some other part of the restaurant, then the bartender and then finally the waitress. To get boxes for leftovers, we waited 15 minutes while we were actively ignored via eye contact from various staff, while asking for help out loud. If there is a service charge, there has got to be service. Don't charge me more for less because you don't want to pay your staff out of your own profit. Not only does the service suffer because there's less motivation to do a good job, but its also creating a whole restaurant full of waiters with terrible habits and terrible skills. I don't think they are even aware that they did a bad job. It all seems like they wanted to make a system that would create faster table turns and require less staff, but ended up making a terrible user interface while keeping the same staff numbers and extending...

Dysfunctional and overpriced. Went here on a work trip. There was a line and we got on the list and provided a callback number but they never called. When we went back to check after a long time it turned out they had lost our reservation or entered the wrong info and never called us. When we got seated, they revealed the wait staff was not taking orders. Instead we were forced to download an app, enter our credit card info and sign up for google pay. I am really not interested in installing apps and giving up my financial info on line just to eat here. it was not more efficient and it was no doubt part of the reason the line was so long, they are making everyone fiddle around on their phones for a long time before an order is ever placed. It also meant that if you want a second beer, you have to place a new order and in my case expense a second receipt. It also made it generally hard to expense, because now I have to pull it from google pay. It was a truly stupid ordering system. It did not reduce covid danger, and did not make anything easier or faster. They were out of multiple beers that we ordered. A server would have at least been able to tell us they were out and not placed the order. Everything was overpriced of course. Price gouging is to be expected near Disneyland, so no real surprises there, but $12 for their mediocre beers was a bit much even for the location. The burger I ordered was good tasting but not how I ordered it. I specified medium on the order app and it was beyond well done. I also did not like that they asked us to tip before we had received any service. And even though the wait staff did hardly anything because they were relying on an app, their minimum tip percentage tier on the app was a generous 18%. For carrying a tray to a table, and otherwise offering zero service of any kind. I feel like 2 stars is being generous, this place was a bad experience at every turn. Everything was mediocre, difficult, unhelpful, poorly executed, and overpriced. Definitely...

Crafty fare and cold drinks served up a walking distance from the happiest place on earth. We knew what we were getting into. We knew that even Downtown Disney equals overpriced food. After walking 15,000 steps in 5 hours we were exhausted and sweaty and looking for a cold drink, cool table and good food. We waited like 5 minutes for a table, while the burger place next door had a huge line outside, and we're taken upstairs to the main floor littered with taps and modern decor. The place looks cool and the menu isn't bad either. Typical craft brewery food makes up the majority of the menu and I settled on the poutine while my wife tried the carne asada fries. The beer speaks for itself, if your here because you are fan of Ballast Point then you know how good the beer is. While having the favorites, they also offer some hard seltzers and ciders to go with the vast list of IPA's. The ordering process is all done via smart phone and then the food just arrives. We didn't have to wait long for food either as it was ready in about 10 minutes. My wife's carne asada fries were good, but nothing that you couldn't recreate pretty accurately at home. The poutine was on a whole different level though. Whatever kind of spiral potatoes and sauce, not to mention the braised beef in what tasted like a wine sauce, was impeccable. It really was something that made you close your eyes after biting. Not sure if they just hit a home run on that one dish or if we just got lucky, but the rest of the meal was just alright. Maybe the fact that there wasn't a real line outside tells the story. Either way, prices aside, the food we had was good and sometimes great. Staff was nice and attentive and the place was clean and cool. When you've been dragging two kiddos around Disneyland all day, sometimes all you need is a cold beer and some braised beef and potatoes to remind you that you are at the happiest...