Street Side Ale House and Eatery — Restaurant in Atascadero

We celebrated our Daughters 21st birthday here. Food, Drinks & our waiter were great however they cannot accommodate big parties.

We ended up having a total of 24 people come and go throughout the night from 630 pm to 10 pm and we initially told them we would have 18 people to begin with and they said they wouldn't seat us until all of my party was there.I told them many in my party would be coming & going and we would like to sit & not wait as not all would arrive all at once. We already had 10 of us there so we sat but they wouldn't give us any other tables or chairs until the rest arrived. When the rest of my party arrived they had to sit away from us and those that wanted to be near us ended up standing :(

We asked several times for more chairs and tables & they gave us the run around even though there were 3 more tables open right next to us.We spent well over 600 dollars with all the food and drinks we ordered. So they should have given us tables or at the very least chairs.

At the end of the night I asked the waiter what the heck was up with the fact that they didn't accommodate the rest of our party. He gave us the lame excuse that his boss has a rule that big parties have to be seated all at once because there is a weekly group of people that come in that are majorly rude, bark orders at them and try to monopolize the restaurant and pull chairs and tables without asking....WOW! Really? So my group has to suffer? When I told you to begin with this is a milestone birthday party for my daughter not your weekly bunch of rude customers.

So to the Boss that has this rule you should really consider establishing a new rule: Have that party that comes in each week and has ruined it for other big parties make reservations and block off your restaurant for them. My group had to suffer for something we had not done. We would have sat on the patio & we would have had no problems being out there but you already had a party of 30 water polo players out there.

Take home: We wont be going back or hosting any parties there! Its an OK place if your just going with a few people...

Was expecting better from this place. The food really lacked flavor and quality compared to their high prices. There are many better restaurants in the area, that don't cost a fortune! Small portions of something that tastes like a Walmart $5 frozen meal for ~$35 per person? Nah... The waitstaff also ignored us for a good 20 or so minutes, just kept walking right by our table, and left all of the other tables (in the outdoor patio area, where we were seated) completely dirty piled with half eaten food. I mean, chicken bones, lots of them, chewed on drumsticks. We had to stare at that for the whole meal. Instead, the waitstaff cleaned up one glass of nearly full beer, right when we sat down. Weird!

What really did it was the appetizer. We ordered the roast vegetable dish. It came a long long time later, 45+ minutes, with almost nothing on the plate. We got two 1 cm thick slices of zucchini, two 1/4 inch slices of portobello mushroom, and two 1 inch wide slices of bell pepper. All for ~10-12 $$ (don't remember exact amount), no sauce, no seasoning, and the vegetables were clearly dried out on the grill NOT roasted. Three people are supposed to share that....? Or even eat it?! I asked our waitress to speak with a manager. I asked her three times. She instead told me she'd bring a comment card. She merely handed me the bill instead. I had to walk inside and grab a manager. The manager then argued with me, insisted the appetizer was "portioned for cost" (all fifteen cents worth of it, lol), and said he saw "no room for improvement" with the dish. To their credit, they gave me "half price", which is better than nothing, but still a lot of money for quite literally two bites of very cheap vegetables. The portion was less than a side dish.

After this very unpleasant experience, none of us will be coming back. I see lots of outstanding reviews. I would like to hope our dinner was merely an...

We have been here before. The food was incredible, service was phenomenal, and the drinks were well done! However, today was quite the polar opposite... The burgers were terrible—thin, flavorless patties buried under an absurd amount of lettuce. It was like eating a salad with a trace of beef. Whoever thought that ratio made sense needs to seriously rethink their burger game.

The only saving grace was the sides. The mac and cheese and onion rings were actually fantastic—rich, crispy, and well-prepared. But great sides can’t carry an entire meal, especially when the main item is so poorly done.

What really killed it for me, though, was the surprise “business charge” tacked onto the receipt. A 2.99% fee—$1.51 in our case—was added without any mention on the menu or signage. And it was already printed on the receipt before I even said how I’d be paying. That’s shady. When I asked, I was told it was for credit card processing, but that explanation doesn’t hold water if the charge appears regardless of payment method. It feels like deception—or worse, theft.

I hope this is an either temporary setback due to the street construction, but this seems like the business is going downhill. Poor quality main dish and charging customers for credit card processing seems like maybe they’re on the verge of closing down and the customer shouldn’t have to foot that bill…. This kind of practice is unacceptable and reflects terribly on the business. If you eat here, check your...