Study Hall Rooftop Lounge — Restaurant in Berkeley

After several years, I finally know the answer to what all that construction on this area was all about: a hotel! Not particularly exciting, but a few friends pointed me over to their rooftop bar on the 12th floor that we checked out after drinking at Jupiter. I'll share the breakdown below:

Ambiance - Enter past the hotel lobby towards the elevator. There is only one elevator designated for the rooftop bar for non-hotel guests. Don't take the other ones, as you'll need a keycard (which I embarrassingly learned). The bar does have both indoor & outdoor options! I was only able to take a picture of the indoor view, which was stunning to be honest. It had a few tables, seats, and you can see the view from wherever you sit.

The outdoor setting not only has a fair amount of tables and couches, but also has some fire pits (essential when it's cold at night). They also may have a band playing live music outside if you come during happy hour or dinnertime. Otherwise, they'll play a mixture of genres as background music. No outdoor patio heaters unfortunately.

Drinks - cocktails are a bit more pricier compared to your standard bar 12 floors below ($15-19). The two drinks I enjoyed the most here were the "Rum Smash" and "K.Thx.Bye", which were on the sweeter side of the spectrum (and I shamelessly enjoy). They also have non-alcoholic options as well.

Food - They offer a mixture of tapas, side dishes, salads and a few entrees. Again, they were all on the pricier side. I personally enjoyed the crispy fried brussels sprouts ($15), which was a more generous portion than pictured on the menu! We also shared the chips n' dip combo ($15), but found that they already ran out of the nacho cheese option around 9:30pm. Instead, we got a double portion of guacamole with salsa.

Service - it was adequate, and the servers were pleasant and amicable to us (cracking a few jokes at my friends, which I thoroughly enjoyed). Even though there's a QR code on your table, you still have to order old-school via your server, rather than over the phone. Drinks and food came without too much delay during our time here.

Just a few additional notes from my trip:

Make a reservation on OpenTable if possible!! However, if you're like me and went on a whim, they do take walk-ins (if available). You can also ask the hostess there if you can put your name down on a reserved wait-list, and let them know how big your group is and what time you'll come back by. That helped when I came back with a bigger group a couple of hours later. Because they lack patio heaters, they do offer blankets if it's too cold outside. I highly recommend bringing a jacket regardless!!

Overall, it was a nice experience! I had a pleasant time, and would definitely recommend to, if not bring, my friends out here to drink sometime in the near future (once my wallet...

This was the worst dining experience I’ve ever had. Where do I even start. I went there for a friend’s birthday and we all arrived at 6:45 PM. There were 10 of us, a reservation was made, and they decided to split us between two tables. We had to move tables around ourselves and convince the hostess to help us rearrange the tables so that we could sit together. I went to start ordering around 7 and the waitress said “wait, let me check with the kitchen to see what we have in stock.” She comes back and says three (of the twelve) items on the menu they don’t have in stock. We ordered and it took 1 hour for the first dish to come out. Nothing came out together—two dishes would come out then we would wait 20 minutes for another two dishes. Then around 8:30, three of us still didn’t have our food so the waitress asked us to tell her our orders because the kitchen forgot. One of my friends then finally got her steak at 8:45 and it came out completely undercooked. She ordered it medium well and it was definitely medium rare—the piece on the end, which should be cooked the most, was fully pink if not even a little red. We tell the waitress who takes it back to the kitchen and then tells us the chef said it’s cooked medium well but he will cook it well done for you. Excuse me??! I wish I took a picture of the steak because that chef needs to learn how to cook a steak to the proper temperature. And since when has it been okay to tell your customers they are wrong? If she wants it cooked more, then cook it more. That’s just poor customer service. The chef just took each piece of the sliced steak and seared it instead of making a new one. I then finally got my chicken salad that had very over cooked chicken. We didn’t get the check and leave until 9:30. They even charged us a health care surcharge for their employees since they are too cheap to provide them with the proper benefits. This place barely deserves a star. The only good thing was that the waitress was super nice. Other than that, the band playing was too loud we couldn’t even hear ourselves talk, the food was severely mediocre, and the price was way too much for what we got. Would...

I don’t like writing bad reviews but I felt this was important. I’m strictly gluten free because I have celiac disease. They unveiled a new menu recently and I was excited to see gluten free options. When I arrived with my party we were ordering and I asked the waitress if they have a dedicated fryer for their gluten free French fries, tortilla chips, etc. She stated that their fryer is shared so those items could be contaminated, tacos are safe, and they could make me a lettuce wrap burger. So she brings out the food and she tells me that the only thing that’s safe for me to eat is the edamame. I was confused and grabbed the menu and pointed to the gluten free symbols next to French fries, nachos, flatbread pizzas, etc. She stated no, the French fries are coated in flour, and the flatbread pizza is made on regular crust, not gluten free. Not having a dedicated fryer is a pretty normal thing for restaurants, but listing items as gluten free when they in fact contain gluten is dangerous. The menu should be properly labeled as someone with a severe reaction could end up in the hospital. I’m glad I asked about the menu more in depth before I...