Pyrenees Cafe — Restaurant in Bakersfield

Bakersfield has the largest collection of Basque restaurants in the United States, with the Pyrenees Cafe being a super old one. I think it was first opened around 1901 as a boarding house, mostly for men, and brothel house on the side that served people coming in from Spain and other areas--the food and the women. It was also quite busy during prohibition making their own booze. Whether it was good, who knows, this was years and years ago. There are not as many Basque places in Bakersfield as their once was and I wish they would all come back. They are just great. The food is wonderful. It is often served family style and you just feel welcome. The ladies of the night are long gone and it is kid friendly.

These establishments like Pyrenees carry the traditions of their ancestors, offering a Basque food experience to everyone. It is on a long street and there are several Basque places to eat and we love them all. This one is a favorite.

Customarily, meals at the Pyrenees Café are multicourse, served family style at long tables, but they also have smaller tables and a bar counter. We always get started with the 'set-up,' a generous spread of bread, soup, beans, salsa, pickled tongue, vegetables, French fries, and spaghetti. Now you don't have to do this and you can have just bread or whatever to start, but we love the 'set up." I don't like tongue, but I drive it back to my dog who loves me for it. I am sure it is great, just not for me.

The entrees include lamb, chicken, pasta, ox tail and seafood, or the special entrée of the night, which is always great.

So, go. It may be a new experience for you and the entire Downtown (near the tracks) Bakersfield area can really use the business. It is super safe and it is fun.

Oh, and now they have...

Thank you Julie and Rod for such an enjoyable time of excellent food completely matched by excellent service!🤩

I first heard about this restaurant from an episode of ATC/Cooks Country where their garlic fried chicken was featured. I drove down 250 miles last month from northern CA to celebrate my birthday with my grandson. The waitress was so kind and welcoming. She recommended I order Basque style and all of the accoutrements were flavorful and complementary. The salsa/cottage cheese on the bread is inexplicably delicious. I'd never tried tongue; it was so tender and went excellently with the salad! The soup with the addition of beans was rich and tangy!😋

We also ordered the lollipops...the hot off the grill, juicy, smoky, slightly sweet (from the accompanying balsamic reduction) is a MUST!

I was only able to eat a small amount of each so I could save room for the chicken! My grandson remarked on how large and juicy his burger was! The chicken was as crispy on the outside as it was moist on the inside with fragrant and fresh garlic spread all over!🤩😋

We ended up boxing up most of it to go.😊 The leftovers were even BETTER the next day!

I sent pictures of everything to my friends and family, and my cousin from Fresno asked if I'd be interested in going again with her. We went again yesterday, and I'm pleased to say the food was just as excellent as before, plus Julie and Rob were there, coming around to check on all of patrons. They were so welcoming and friendly...as were the entire staff, who constantly came by to see if we needed anything.

Even though it was a nearly 500 mile round trip for me and a couple hundred for my cousin, we're already planning our next visit next...

I visited here on a Sunday a couple weeks ago expecting a great experience because I had heard good things about this place . Well my group left very disappointed. The service was terrible. We came and got seated right away and got our drink orders taken. About 4 more parties got seated after us but for some reason the server began taking their food orders first . She ignored us for a good while. When she finally took our order we thought we’d be getting out food shortly . Well that wasn’t the case . Food started coming out of the kitchen but none of it was going to us. After some time we noticed that people who showed up AFTER our order was taken were getting their food! We asked the waiter for an update on our food and she said it was almost coming out that it was being plated. We should have left but we believed that our food was really coming when she said . Well we waited over an hour for our food on top of the time we had already waited to get our order taken and when I asked where our food was and why other people whose orders were taken after ours were receiving their food she said it had something to do with the system in the kitchen. By the time we got our food we had lost our appetites. The food wasn’t bad but it was not worth the trouble we went through and it was not cheap. I will never be visiting this...