California Pizza Kitchen at River Walk — Restaurant in Bakersfield

So last Tuesday My daughter, her boyfriend and myself decided to check out this new Next Chapter menu at California Pizza Kitchen. We hadn’t been to California Pizza Kitchen in over 7 or 8 years. We arrive around 7pm and the place was not to busy for a Tuesday evening so the hostess seated us right away. Within less than a minute our server Blake came over and greets us. My daughter asks about the Strawberry Mango Cooler and decided it sounds refreshing so Blake fills our drink order and proceeds to tell us about the new menu, we ask a few questions and we make our choices.

The first thing we order is our Appetizers. I get the Sesame Ginger Chicken Dumplings and she gets the Chicken Lettuce Wrap with Shiitake Mushrooms.

First the Dumplings were wonderful! light with just a hint of ginger, not over powering at all. It came with 6 or 7 on the plate I think and that was enough for all three of us. I would defiantly order them again. The Lettuce wraps. I enjoyed the lettuce wrap. But not as much as Taylor, She had two. I Liked the the fact that they didn’t skimp on the Shiitake Mushrooms.

I ordered the Ribeye. Yep, you read that right! A Ribeye at a pizza place. Who knew? This was a 12oz ribeye cooked perfect (the way I ordered it). I’m already a blue cheese fan, so when I saw it came with a creamy blue cheese butter I was hooked. I like the fact that when it was delivered it was still piping hot, not like it had been sitting around waiting on the rest of the food. I tried the other entrees and will give you their review in a moment but this was by far my favorite and I will return for this steak again.

My Daughter ordered the Halibut, now she lived in Alaska and worked at a fishing lodge last summer so she is a bit spoiled when it comes to salmon, halibut & crab. In her opinion this halibut reminders of being back in Ketchikan, AK. Not quite as good as catching it, filleting it and eating it all in the same 12 hours but about as close as you can get. I was lucky enough to get a small sample of the halibut and I have to agree. The halibut was tender but not to flaky and well it had really good flavor it certainly was not fishy.

All in all it was a wonderful meal. The service was top notch. We really enjoyed the fact that not only did our server Blake make sure our drinks were never empty but, that the chef him self delivered some of the food and cared enough to check on us. Now before you go thinking it was special treatment, sadly we’re not that special, I noticed Chef Esteban, Ast Manager Zack and even the GM Frank seem to be taking a real interest in the customers. checking in on them, asking if there is anything they can get you, etc. It was nice to see the attention they payed to all their customers. They offered us a tour of the restaurant. How could we say no. From the prep station to the back area and even the brick oven. We saw it all. during the tour Chef Esteban told us how on days and evenings when they have time they love to take young kids back their and show them how to toss a pizza. As you can see I’m a pretty big kid. They showed us how to toss the pizza dough. Must say this was a really fun night with my daughter and her boyfriend.

One of the things that stood out to me is over the entrance to the kitchen was the American Flag. I asked the GM Frank, who’s idea was it to fly the flag. He said it was his flag and he was proud of it. I was very happy to hear someone proud to display the flag in a public business. This alone goes a long way in my book. Not to mention the fact that they also displayed images of Bakersfield including The Fox Theater, The Clock Tower & The old Chamber Building at the Kern County Museum among other local images. I have not seen many restaurants show as much pride in Bakersfield as I did on Tuesday night from the staff at California Pizza Kitchen.

So in the opinion of just another Bakersfield local I would have to say that California Pizza Kitchen gets 5 out of 5 Stars from all three of us.California Pizza...

I thought the food here was pretty decent. I walked in around 5pm on Monday when I walked in place was mostly empty. I looked around everyone looked like they’re just waiting on their food for the most part. I came with my 4 year old immediately got served drinks. It took the waitress over 15 minutes to come back to take our order and I was STARVING. Didn’t even have bread yet to hold myself til the waitress came back. She had a big table about 14 people and was being very attentive to them. While I was waiting.. she NEVER CAME BACK. Eventually I asked another waiter his name was Aaron if he can take my order and he did AMAZING. He didn’t even have to check on us after but did. Made sure we had bread and were very great and understanding after I apologized. I was just very hungry. The waitress that was supposed to tend to us she has straight reddish hair in a pony tail with big glasses. She seemed like she was “busy.” She barely came to our table seemed like she didn’t want to be there. Checked on us once after I asked if someone can take my order. Didn’t even stop. Continued to walk past me while she asked if I was good. Very rushed when handling my table. I didn’t appreciate it. I don’t know if kids drinks could get refilled but didn’t even bother to refill my son’s drink. Aaron checked on us, got us cheese and was so patient. I really liked his service. Especially serving a table that wasn’t...

Friday night, about 7 pm, no wait to get in or for a table, so that was nice. The waiter was nice, tho not that attentive. We got our drinks and were finally able to order some appetizers, which came quickly. We had the avocado egg rolls and the potstickers. Both were good. The egg rolls had a light crispy batter and came with 2 dipping sauces. One was ranch, and the other, perhaps, a spicy ranch. The potstickers had good flavor, especially the sauce in which they were sat.

All the food ordered was fair. We had orders of mushroom, carne asada, and vegetarian pizzas. Had the choice of thin crust or regular. I'm glad I went with regular as it was thin enough. Can't imagine what the thin crust would have been like. A big cracker, perhaps? The pizzas were not that spectacular. I've had ones with more flavor from Lil Ceasers. The carne asada on mine was tender, and the green salsa dip that came with it was good. Other than that, it was really unremarkable.

Other orders were pastas and burgers. Kung Pao spaghetti, a Bolognese, and a Garlic Cream fettuccine. The burgers looked absolutely fantastic. I'm not sure which ones they got, but I'll explore that part of the menu if I come back for sure!

We didn't have room for dessert, but they sure looked tempting. Overall, it was a standard experience. I wouldn't go back for pizza, but I might for...