Ocean Grill — Restaurant in California

I honestly wish I could give this place 0 stars.

My mother and I decided to go here on Tuesday March 12th because clam chowder sounded apitizing and we’ve heard great things about the restaurant, apon entering it was 5:02pm (they had just opened NOBODY WAS INSIDE) we were sat by the hostess who was very friendly and shortly after greeted by our server and began ordering our Clam Chowder (which was brought out quickly) we had not been checked on once after that point. (About 5:10pm). The clam chowder was brought over and it was luke warm, it had no flavor, mostly just potatoes, and no substance what’s so ever. Although staff was friendly in the beginning they were WAY TO CONCERNED with their conversations they were having to actually check if we wanted to order more or had any issues with our food (We literally could hear everything they were talking about). We had waited for a few moments to see if our server would come over to attended to us but by 5:17pm we had enough and had to wave down the staff, the server had then stopped his conversation and walked over to ask if everything was alright to which we explained that the clam chowder was cold and that we would like the check and the manager to complain about the service. He responded that we do not have to to worry about the check, and he would bring the manager right over. Keep in mind the “manager” was sitting at the bar talking to staff. When Chef Brian (the supposed manager) approached us he was friendly but as we expressed our complaint about the soup and the servers not paying attention to us he got very defensive, unprofessional, smirked at us, and was rude. He had stated word for word “we just opened at 5:10 and you guys have only been here 5 minutes!” Which is a COMPLETE lie they open at 5pm on weekdays. Then as we explained that it was not true, and how our server didn’t check on us once he went on to say “I’m sitting at the bar I watched him come over and check on you” which he obviously didn’t because he didn’t look in our direction once and was more concerned with his conversation with the staff member at the bar, and why would we complain about not receiving service for no reason? We went on to explain that is simply not true and we had been here for 20 minutes without a follow up, as we were getting ready to walk out we had stated that he obviously doesn’t care about how his staff runs the place and that he is very rude and unprofessional and we’d be writing a bad review, to which his responded “I do care BUT I don’t like when patreons don’t tell the truth” and it honestly made me flabbergasted that a “manager” could sit there and call us liars. Chef Brian is COMPLETELY unprofessional and I’m highly disgusted with the so called managers behavior, and how he handled...

If I could rate this restaurant a zero star rating I would. Giving this restaurant a one star review is still very generous from what they did to me and my sisters, it’s so unbelievable and does not deserve a star review. I’m not making this up when I say they didn’t want to serve us because we had a “big group”. What’s even more ridiculous is that we saw big parties being seated before us and bigger parties leaving together. We had 11 people in our group, 5 adults and 6 kids, and what’s crazy is that when we went to another restaurant, because Ocean Grills didn’t want to serve us, they sat us perfectly fine and had better customer service than this restaurant did. We had a long stressful day driving, planning, and going to the beach so when we saw that ocean grills was open and closely convenient for us we decided to go, we had to wait over 15 minutes to get seen by the host and when the host came to talk to us she told us we had a “big party” and couldn’t serve us. I’m not making this up because I’ve NEVER seen a restaurant reject a BIG party like ours. There’s a saying that goes, the bigger the party the bigger the tip but I guess this restaurant can care less about that. I’m not that type of person that likes to cause problems or make a scene, and that day I should’ve because we had a LONG day. We were all very exhausted and didn’t want to drive anywhere else other than drive back home. Customer service is very poor, this restaurant is terrible compared to the other restaurant we went to, their customer service was COMPLETELY opposite from ocean grills, which makes lead to writing this poor review on this restaurant. So if you have a big group and you’re hungry, DONT go here because they apparently don’t need your money and will tell you that they can’t serve you due to your size group. Ocean grills, do better because if another restaurant is doing way better than yours, you can kiss your restaurant goodbye. Yes, I’m being very petty about this review because this host didn’t talk to me and if she did I would’ve asked for the manager and complained. That will be our first and last time ever going to ocean grills and I will not recommend this restaurant to anyone else nor families and friends. Take the drive and go to another restaurant because ocean grills does not deserve anyone else coming to dine here and then being...

Ocean Grill...Ocean Gross. My husband and I stayed at the Inn at the Avila, they recommended this restaurant as they were offering a 10% discount to hotel guests. So we went, put our names down for a 1 hr wait, as the kitchen was swamped. So we waited, got sat. I ordered the ceasar salad and the four cheese ravioli. My husband order the pepperoni pizza. We were served bread and oil while we waited. The oil and vinegar was served with minced shallots...I've never seen this before, but the last thing I want to dip my bread in is onion. And the bread was a little moist, probably given to our proximity to the water, so this I can't really hold against them. But I can say that the restaurant should take more steps in filtering their tap water. It was bad tasting tap. My zero filter does a better job on my tap and I live in the central valley.

The food arrives and I stumped. I have never been served a char-broiled split romain lettuce before, and let me tell you...there's a reason why...putting lettuce on heat wilts it...so no, this is no good. Plus it was hard to cut into. I was wanting a refreshing salad, and so, I actually had to send this one back. My husband's pizza had about 75-100 slices of pepperoni on the pizza and left it beyond greasy to where my husband could only eat one slice, took the rest home just to throw it away...we should have sent this back too. And finally, my gluten-free cheese ravioli: 6 medium ravioli pieces, covered in a white sauce, and filled with mushrooms and tomatoes. For the price, you can tell these were not homemade and should have been....I should have sent everything back and left. But we didn't, we paid our $45 tab, no discount, and left.

Although we didn't order any seafood items, I can only assume their seafood is lackluster, as most people know, perfecting land and sea is far more difficult than nailing salad and pizza. Therefore, if you want a long wait, burnt salad, and to burn your money, dine here.

Side note, a little birdie in town told me that the new owners are out of town owners and are not in touch with the local culture. Perhaps this is why they don't have a pulse on what's happening with...