Avalon Grille — Restaurant in Avalon

I wish could give something lower than one star. My friend and I went in there to eat on 8/17 at 730pm. The host told us that it will be about 45 minutes to be seated, no problem. So we decided to sit at the bar, as we sat there we were not approached by any of the bartenders. So we sat there for about 10 minutes before we actually asked one of the bartenders for a drink menu. He handed us a drink menu and no one came around to take our drink order. So we sat there for another 20 minutes, just to see if anyone would serve us, no-go. The 3 bartenders (all latinos, one tall skinny man, early 20's, short, very mannish female, mid 30's, and one older man, early 50's)-I didn't get their names, wish I had). They did everything possible to keep from serving us, such as stacking glasses, wiping off menus, etc. There were two couples at the bar, and they were already drinking/eating when sat down. Two women walked in about 15 minutes after we sat down, got served before they could even put their purses down. The bartenders were tripping over each others feet trying to serve them. We actually waved to them because we were all at another restaurant having lunch. As we looked around we noticed that we were the ONLY minorities in the restaurant that was not a worker, or accompanied by our white counter-part. There was a black guy having dinner, with a table of white people, sitting on the patio. As we left, my friend decided to tell the host to take our name off the waiting list, as we were not served at the bar, and asked to speak to the manager. She was apologetic, and mentioned that the manager was not available, so we just left. I guess it was our fault for missing the signage "Unaccompanied Minorities will not be served unless their are with their white counter-part". However, we didn't let this ruin our evening, we had perfect service and food at Steve's Steakhouse. And had perfect service and food at Bluewater Grill the...

Visiting Avalon for an extended weekend for my birthday so we decided to give Avalon Grille a try for dinner and had a very nice experience. They don’t take reservations, like most restaurants on Catalina, but there was no wait when we arrived at 5:30 and were able to be seated right away. All the staff that we encountered, including our server, were very polite and everything that we ordered came out pretty fast. You can tell the inside has been recently remodeled, and there is a large oval bar in the middle of the restaurant with TVs around it so this would be really nice place to have dinner and/or drinks.

As a few reviews mentioned, it is a bit pricey, but not overly so. It’s less than you would spend at a lot of restaurants in West LA so I feel that it is fair, especially given it’s proximity to the water. They have a lot of great dishes on the menu so it took a minute to decide what I wanted to order. For my meal, I decided to start with the Watermelon Feta Salad and really enjoyed it. It was a good size portion and would be easy to split between two people, but it’s also the perfect amount for one person if you’re hungry. For my entrée, I chose the Whole Branzino and really liked it. I get Branzino often so I’ve tried it all over California, and beyond, and I can say that this is a good version. It did have quite a few bones in it, but that’s what you get when you do a Whole Branzino. The side succotash was really nice and overall it was very good.

Given the limited options in Avalon, I would say this is one of the best places to grab dinner and certainly has an amazing location. I would recommend and would try it again next time I’m...

This place the has potential to be great and it is very cute and well decorated. However, the service was extremely disappointing and made us feel quite uncomfortable. To start, we put our name in with the hostess, as reservations are NOT allowed. After waiting for 40 min, we asked kindly for an update as to when our table might be ready. (All four of us have experience working in service - we were very kind to her and simply asked for an update). She seemed extremely annoyed by our question, and when we were finally seated after an hour, she spitefully sat us at the four top table in the high-traffic bartender/kitchen area. So, we kindly asked if we could be moved to an empty table on the patio. She stated that unfortunately someone else had already requested outdoor seating, and the empty table was set for four people. The place does not take reservations. The hostess had flat out LIED to avoid making our meal more comfortable for us. After 20 minutes, they gave the open table to 2 people, not 4. She had spitefully refused to move us, just for asking a simple question. Overall, our waitress was very nice but not attentive. Also, the food took quite a long time and left a lot to be desired. I recommend the Brussels sprouts, but our four meals including the NY steak and burger were barely edible; for the price we expected much better. The hostess gave us dirty looks when we left as well. I am not sure why she was so mad at us. Overall, this was one of the worst dining experiences of my life, and Avalon grille would be the last place I’d recommend to dine...