Story Bar + Kitchen — Restaurant in Anaheim

I’ve been to Story in Anaheim twice now. The first time was on a Saturday night with friends, and it was such a wonderful experience — fantastic food, beautiful ambiance, and attentive service. We were all so impressed that I chose to come back for my birthday dinner. Unfortunately, that second visit didn’t live up to the first.

We had a 7:00 PM reservation on Sunday, March 30th, 2025, and while the restaurant was relatively quiet, our server seemed rushed and distracted from the beginning. When we ordered three appetizers for our party of four, he told us it was too much and too heavy — which felt odd, but we explained we planned to take it easy on entrées and share. When we did order two entrées to share between the four of us, he seemed surprised and asked, “You’re still going to order?” It felt a bit dismissive.

Then he told us his shift was ending and asked us to close the bill, which I’ve never experienced at a restaurant before. Usually, service transitions smoothly to another server. Instead, he closed out our tab and passed us off to someone else who opened a new one. What was more surprising is that at no point did a manager check in with our table to ensure the transition was smooth or that our experience was going well. At many restaurants, managers take a moment to stop by when shifts change, especially if it’s a birthday or a special occasion. That extra layer of attentiveness was completely missing.

The second round of drinks took 15–20 minutes to arrive, and when my lemon drop martini came with a salted rim instead of sugar, it had to be redone — which took even longer. The second server was inattentive and didn’t check in often. After our entrées, he simply brought the bill — no offer of dessert or coffee. I had mentioned during the reservation that it was a birthday celebration, but that was never acknowledged. We ended up asking for the dessert menu ourselves, and when I requested a candle, it was brought — but it all felt like an afterthought.

Throughout the meal, we were never offered clean plates or utensils, despite sharing dishes. We just kept using the same ones from the appetizers onward, which felt a bit off for a restaurant of this caliber.

I still love the food and ambiance — and I drive 30 minutes to dine here. But great food can’t make up for lackluster service. It truly felt like we were more of a burden than guests. There are so many other places where hospitality matches the quality of the food, and unfortunately, we’ll be exploring...

I called in 2 weeks prior to coming in to make a reservation for a group of 9 for Saturday brunch. They were very accommodating and sent a text to confirm as well as a reminder text a day before our reservation. We came in last Saturday to celebrate 2 of our friend's birthdays. They greeted and seated us when most of our party arrived. The restaurant was sumptuous with black snake skin wallpaper and floral couches. Very maximal chic.

Adrian was our server and was great for most of our meal. The issue only arose towards the end of the meal when he brought out a scoop of ice cream and whipped cream for both of the birthday girls, which we assumed would be comped as is the practice of other restaurants. All was fine and dandy until I noticed days later after reviewing the itemized receipt that we were charged $8 ($16 total) for each scoop of ice cream. If we had been told ahead of time that we would be billed for this, I would not have had an issue; hell, I would have ordered a couple real desserts for the group to share instead. But to sneakily add it onto the final total bill without any disclosure was disingenuous especially when the service for the rest of the meal had been excellent.

Now onto the food review!

3.5/5 The espresso martini with $3 Bailey's upcharge (not notified of upcharge beforehand) was strong and satisfactory.

5/5 The ube coconut waffle was decadent. The texture was cake-like, fluffy, and soft. Not too sweet and wonderful all-around.

4/5 The short rib pasta was a little on the bland side but had a heaping amount of slow cooked short rib in the sauce. The pasta was cooked perfectly al dente. Overall, a solid dish.

5/5 The classic breakfast came with everything that you could want and was priced competitively.

4/5 The chicken and waffles was a well balanced dish. The waffles were soft and fluffy with the chicken well fried but a little on the bland side.

3/5 The loaded short rib fries were mid and not special. They came out lukewarm.

Will not recommend coming here if you're celebrating any special occasion because of the dishonest practice experienced here. Patrons beware, if you're coming here to celebrate any sort of special event to check your receipts beforehand to make sure the presumed free celebratory ice cream scoop has not been sneakily added onto your final check. Otherwise, if it's just a regular meal, by all means,...

I visited Story for my sister’s birthday. The reservation was for 12:15pm for 6 people. Upon arrival at 12:10pm, we checked in with the host and was told another party was at our table but was almost done. We patiently waited then was told at 12:25pm the party had paid for the check but was still hanging out. Why couldn’t the host tell this party another party was waiting for this table? At 12:35pm, the host informed us the party had left and we just had to wait for the table to be cleaned. TELL ME WHY it took 13 minutes to clean one table? We finally sat down at 12:48pm, 33 minutes PAST our reservation. My sister has diabetes and her blood sugar was low due to this unacceptable wait time. This restaurant is lucky my sister had a snack available to prevent her from going into diabetic shock. LUCKY. The host thanked us for waiting but did not offer any appetizer or dessert to make up for this appalling mismanagement of reservations nor did a manager visit us to see how we were doing. That is the least they could do.

Unfortunately, this abysmal service did not end there. We were able to order around 1pm which was now 45 minutes after our reservation. A man not dressed as a server, maybe the manager, brought 2 dishes and without announcing what the dishes were, tried to place it on our table. We had to ask, “what is that?” so we could make sure it’s ours. Food runners know to announce what they’re bringing to the table since they don’t know who ordered it. This should be common knowledge working in a restaurant. Two of my sisters ordered the ribeye chilaquiles and there was a mix up where they brought one ribeye chilaquiles and one short rib chilaquiles. Unluckily, my diabetic sister was the one whose meal was missing. So she had to wait AGAIN.

Our server was okay but we did have to ask multiple times for water and had to ask twice for A-1 sauce because she forgot.

Story is a pretty restaurant and we enjoyed our food but we will never be returning due to this...