Firestone Grill — Restaurant in Bakersfield

I had my first experience with the Firestone Grill and it was a to-go order. Let's start with the good... The place and service is really excellent and I like the simplicity of the menu. As for the food (ribs, fries, tri-tip sandwich and coleslaw) that's where things start to come apart. The tri-tip sandwich was the star of the show with the meat being juicy and tender but it had little flavor and relied on the BBQ sauce to help it out (my benchmark for the best tri-tip anywhere is Champs near the BFL airport on Merle Haggard....ridiculously delicious even without BBQ sauce). The ribs.....ahhh the ribs....they had a rather nice smoky flavor, albeit rather salty (plain, no sauce) but the texture was awful as they were super chewy and dry with not a hint of "fall off the bone" in sight. My wife loves BBQ ribs but not on the bone so I am tasked to "debone the meat and even with a sharp steak knife it was a near impossible chore. To add to the difficulty, the bones were big but had surprisingly little meat on them. There is potential with them in the flavor department (I like the wood they use for the smoke) but the rest was a disaster. The coleslaw was meh with maybe too much vinegar and not a hint of sweetness and a little too savory for my liking. And lastly the fries....WAAAAYYYY too much seasoning and salt!! The seasoning has a good flavor but I had my annual sodium intake in like 10 fries. My wife LOVES salt and she even couldn't eat them. The other strange thing with these fries is they are all "end" cuts that have tapered ends as if they use very small potatoes or they use the "heart" of the potato for something else. There were absolutely no truly rectangular cuts to be found. They cut the fries to be rather small in girth so with them always having a taper there is little "meatiness" to the fries. I'd like to give the experience one star but there is potential for some great food to be had if they work out the details and, as mentioned earlier, the service...

I've been to Firestone Grill in Bakersfield a few times. If I lived in or near Bakersfield, I'd be here all the time. But when my travels take me through Bakersfield at lunch time, Firestone Grill is high on my priority list. The restaurant offers a variety of things to eat: burgers, salads, chicken, hot dogs.... I haven't tried any of those. What keeps me coming back is the tri-tip sandwich. The sandwich consists of several generous slices of medium-cooked tri-tip stacked inside a warm, buttered bun. The meat is juicy and flavorful and topped with just the right amount of barbecue sauce. It really is delicious! For my most recent trip to Firestone Grill I was accompanied by my two adult boys who also ordered tri-tip sandwiches. To accompany our sandwiches we ordered baskets of fries and onion rings. The fries are a shoestring variety, crispy, and seasoned. The onion rings are breaded and provide a nice crunch and the onion inside is sweet and flavorful. Everything we ate was outstanding. The restaurant has a lively sports-bar feel with flat screen TVs scattered throughout the building. It's a bit noisy, but not so noisy that you can't converse with others at your table. This time was different from my previous visits because they added a full-serve section as well as a counter-serve section. I'm not sure why they thought this was necessary, but then again, I'm not in the restaurant business. I now live in South Carolina and visit my family in California two or three times a year. But when I come back to the golden state, Firestone Grill beckons me back for some...

We came to have warm food for dinner. This was our first time in this place. We found it through google maps - it had tons of good reviews. I can say we made a good choice. It was easy to find the place following google maps navigations. Outside the place there is a large parking, but all the spots were taken - the place is obviously very popular.

This place is like a fast food restaurant but with healthier options. At the center of the restaurant is a bar, to the right of the entrance is a counter for ordering food. The place is large - plenty of tables, TVs with sport channels on the walls. The place was packed with people - it felt more like a bar on a Friday evening. Many people were ordering beers and snacks but plenty were after food.

On the menu they had sandwiches, burgers, salads, including vegetarian options. We ordered an Italian sausage sandwich with side fries and a large Cobb salad with beef. The food arrived quite fast. Everything was fresh and tasty. The only thing I disliked was plenty of strong spices on the fries - but that’s my personal choice, I prefer having them just salty. We were dining inside, took a place by the window. The tables were clean. I noticed how the waiters were cleaning shortly after customers had left, great job!

Overall a great place with positive atmosphere, great prices and...