Westbrae Biergarten — Restaurant in Berkeley

i love the tri-tip here. so delicious! in a rice bowl or on the loaded fries. (they're spicy even without jalapeños so next time i might ask for less spicy.) great variable beer selection, lots of local beers and cider & kombucha options too. on chilly evenings they have mulled wine!

the outdoor seating is really nice, plenty of shady and sunny options and there's also bike parking which is super convenient. there is often a long wait for food when they're busy, so don't come ravenous.

the staff seem happy and friendly, and i hope that means they're paid well and not overworked or understaffed. there doesn't seem to be a lot of turnover, which seems like a good sign. i will update my review if i find out one way or another.

the only thing i routinely don't like here is the music, but you can't win em all. i will suffer through music i dislike to eat food and...

I had an event here with a group of 15 people who ordered food and drinks over two hours. When leaving, my car battery was dead. I have a jumper battery but that too was dead. I asked two employees if I could use an outlet to charge the battery for 10 mins so I could leave. They both said no and wouldn’t help in any way.

The wait for food and drinks was outrageously long, but aside from that, I’m so disappointed in the employees who work here. Zero compassion.

This place lost at least 4 events a year with at least 15 people per event indefinitely cause they wouldn’t show the bare minimum of understanding for another human.

Shame...

Points for the big picture: Good beer and food in a perfectly nice outdoor garden.

Demerits for high prices and being often overrun by loud, unsupervised babies & children.

Outside the control of this establishment, but you should know that in my experience, if it's a beautiful, warm, sunny, perfect-beer-garden kind of afternoon in the Bay Area, by the time you make it to this place and get through the beer line, it is likely to have turned cold and foggy here ...even though it's still warm and sunny just a mile to the north and south. This place is right in the heart of the Golden Gate/Berkeley chilly...