Smoke House Restaurant — Restaurant in Burbank

GO TO BLACK ANGUS INSTEAD!!! Or anywhere else really. Everything from service to food has declined.

I left this as a 4 star review, because I am not here to hurt a business on yelp, especially being in hospitality myself. But, honestly I would really leave 1 star. I grew up coming to Smokehouse and it was always a treat for the family and I. After today I will never return.

I made a reservation for my dad's 70th birthday. He is not in the best condition and I made it clear when calling and making this reservation, I wanted it to be perfect. It was important for my dad to be able to watch the basketball game while dining, so I went on the hunt for a semi-upscale restaurant with a TV. I made it clear on the phone I needed a reserved table with a CLEAR view of the TV. If that was not possible, I would've understood and looked elsewhere. I told the lady on the phone it was my dad's birthday and this is what I was looking for. I explicitly told her the table would be for 5 adults and 3 CHILDREN. She said that was no problem and confirmed my table for the party, including children, right in front of a TV (around 12pm is when I called) I checked back in later around 6 for my 6:45 reservation to once again confirm that our table was set in front of a TV for 5 adults and 3 children. They confirmed it was set. Once we arrived we were seated at a table by the MANAGER. After 5-10 minutes of sitting we were asked to move, by the MANAGER, because children were not allowed to sit where we were sat. If you are a manager why sit us there in the first place?? He claimed the reservation said the children would be sitting separately. Even though there were enough seats including the children?? And you could clearly tell they were toddlers under the age of 5? And you expect them to sit in another room? It was ridiculous.

The table we were moved to looked like they added it in a split second. If you lift up the table cloth, it is a plastic table and didn't even have enough seats for our party. They had to add extra chairs that blocked walk ways and had people bumping into us all dinner... When the manager could tell I was clearly upset, he offered to comp appetizers. Which I don't care about. I did not want free food, I wanted the perfect night for my dad's birthday which was ruined by this establishment. The appetizers they "comped" were things we would've never ordered. Chicken drumsticks that tasted like bowling alley food, and soggy calamari which no one at our table was interested in. You could've at least asked us what we wanted??? Just felt like food they needed to get rid of. Once sat at this shitty table the manager never said another word, not even a sorry, just sent unwanted appetizers and hid in a hole.

The food was mediocre, as well as the service. Automatic gratuity was added to a visit with a passive aggressive, rude, manager who had no clue what he was doing, and a server that left 0 impression besides getting to the point and just taking our order. No music playing, no friendly waiter that made me enjoy my stay. The friendliest person was the photographer of the tables. Very sweet girl. Give her a promotion instead. The tables they've added in is so damn crammed we watched a waiter set down a tray to serve food and a customer knocked it over just trying to stand out of their booth. Fresh food and broken plates all over the floor. It was really a shitshow. Can't blame the patron, there's no space to walk with all these cheap plastic tables added in! It was really sad to see the decline here, I cried at how horrible it was. Nothing I remembered it was like. Sad to leave this review, but hope the owner sees this and makes changes before everyone realizes how much this place sucks now. Plastic tables really? And a sad...

Last night, we drove up from San Diego to celebrate our son's 17th birthday and we were absolutely wowed! Our experience with this fine establishment commenced with our first phone call to place a reservation. Our call was quickly answered and our 4:30 appointment was confirmed, but upon the staff member hearing that our son and I were excited to finally dine at the restaurant featured in "La La Land" she quickly offered to see if she could have us seated in the very room where the movie had been filmed. This very caring individual (Chloe) did end up seating us right where Ryan Gosling had graced the piano in the "You're Fired" scene, and when my son and I walked in and were greeted by the wait staff, Chloe quickly came up to greet us, comment on our reservation, and took us to our table. We were then served by Marcy, our waitress, who immediately felt like a long-time family friend! She was wonderfully attentive to us -- never rushed -- and really showed genuine interest in assisting us with the menu options. Our food was wonderful (I admit to overeating after the garlic bread and my Tri-tip) and then, without us even requesting it, a very special cake arrived on a plate with "Happy 17th Birthday" written artistically to our son! Marcy, we quickly discovered, had worked at Smoke House for many years, and her genuine hospitality and conversation about the restaurant's history were on display for the entirety of our ninety minutes at our table. We then were handed our bill for the evening, only when we opened it, a thoughtful person who wished to remain anonymous had written a kind note to our son with happy birthday wishes and that someone had paid for our dinner. Stunned, we looked around and tried to piece together who the generous soul happened to be. We'll never know, but as we began to head to our car, every employee we came across either offered to take our picture, or thanked us for coming, or otherwise just thanked us for coming and were enthusiastic about us coming back. Our son and I have revisited last night's experience a number of times, and we already can't wait to make the 100+ mile journey to dine at the Smoke House again! Over the years, we've found that restaurants will often score high on food, or service, or value -- and some real winners will do well on two of the three. Too often, the establishments which score high on two of the three will lack in another area. Smoke House, however, scored high on all three. We had a wonderful service experience, outstanding food, and impeccable service! It was a trifecta, really. We only later learned that this is also the venue where numerous other films and TV shows have filmed. The restaurant could very likely, based upon its history, fail in all three areas and still thrive. Despite its history, however, the team clearly won't rest on its laurels, but will strive to deliver a world-class experience with every customer. Seated next to us was a family of multiple generations celebrating "Uncle Randy" who we later learned was born exactly 70 years earlier than our son (to the date.) Our son and I watched at Marcy waited on every member of this family with patience and interest, and we realized that our experience was far from unique. To the team and owners of Smoke House: please open a restaurant in San Diego. I'll be sure to tell everyone I know about you. Until then, we'll find a way to head up to Burbank again as soon as we can to repeat last...

I worked in the restaurant industry for 10+ years. From fine dining to pub style. The way restaurants operate post Covid, is absolutely horrible!!! I just went to this restaurant. I had always wanted to attend this restaurant since I moved here nine years ago. I order the medallions as well as the bacon wrapped scallops which by the way were the best bacon wrapped scallops I have ever ever ever had. Five stars on that. I also had three cocktails. My discrepancy with the cocktails is that for 17+ dollars each my espresso martini didn’t have real espresso my lemon drop martini didn’t have real lemon juice, and my peach martini wasn’t the greatest peach. And on top of that they were all made with Stoli‘s. I like Stoli‘s well for $17 the alcohol Contant should be of a higher grade. Here is my main issue, I ordered my food I ate half of it I left a call back realizing that I left my to go box. I never ate my sides of my baked sweet potato which I was so excited about. Beyond leaving the code to go box the host kept telling me things and I said so basically are you saying that I can’t get my food and he just would not admit or confess or just say how things really were. And it was the hardest most difficult conversation I have ever had. Both as someone who has worked in HR for the VA and HR in the restaurant industry as well as management. It was the most worst conversation I’ve ever had around getting my food. Long story short what was told to me is I could come back and pay half off for my food. He even asked my whole name which I gratefully divulged. I have nothing to hide. This is And to be honest, if he had said that upfront and reason with me like ma’am, I know you left your food up here and that really sucks but what we can honestly do is give you the saying portion of your food for half off, we’re willing to accommodate you that way because it sucks, I actually would’ve paid for it and came back up to the restaurant. But the fact that I had to go lawyer on him and treat him the way I’ve had to treat men as a woman in the United States military where I had to back him into a corner of conversation to admit what actually happened for him to Jin then divulge how he could meet me halfway, I don’t want the service you were only giving it to me because that’s all you can do....