Fire Rock Burgers & Brews — Restaurant in Calimesa

This place was very neat and clean. Parking is a bit testy. If you come on a busy night you might have to park farther than the expected "small" walk. It is in the same parking lot as a grocery store. The wait times usually take longer than expected. The staff are less than ok, they all seemed to have attitude with other customers as I watched them woth different people. Mainly the ones taking orders and clearing tables. They didn't seem like they wanted to be their. So, not the best service/ staff working there. Dont expect too many smiles or too much kindness and a welcoming feeling when you enter here. They seem a bit, lost, if I could choose a word. Lost and grumpy. They have a small variety of "souvenirs". The food was delicious, however, the portions are very small. I've been to, probably, thousands of restaurants and I can honestly say that their food is overpriced compared to the portion size. I'm not saying it wasn't good. It was delicious. I just wouldn't pay for the food again as I could get the same kind of food at Applebee's and much more of it for much less. So if I was craving Fire Rock I wouldn't miss out by going to a place that serves similar food. I wouldn't waste my money as they are not anything out of the ordinary but if I could compare them to anywhere it would be Applebee's. It breaks my heart sometimes to write these types of truths about "snaller" businesses. However, it IS the truth. Like I've said, the food tasted very well, as it was very small portions for an outrageous price. If they dropped their prices and I wasn't holding a largely appetite, I would absolutely come back. As of now, I would just go to Applebee's. Oh, they also have live VERY LOUD MUSIC. It was great music, however, I got sat 2ft from the artist and my table of 9 was shouting from the bottom of our stomachs to hear one another and our ears were ringing by the time our dinner was complete. Like I said, we were 2ft from the artist and 6in from the stage. I was actually so close that I was conversing with the artist on stage and he didn't even need to get up. Thats how I put in a song request. Thankyou for your time if you've read this far. I'm sure it would have sounded different if we weren't sat so close...

Local gem in our area... Calimesa, CA. It has another one in Big Bear, CA in the village. It just opened a few months back. We watched it being built and couldn't wait. This was our first visit and it didn't disappoint. It had a wait but the bar had seats and you can order from the full menu, so since just us two We sat there. We started with drinks of a beer for my husband Blood Orange Cali Squeeze... very good. I had Smoke on the Water which is a twist on an old fashioned...it has blood orange in it..it was good..but I had a better drink later. We started with an appetizer of the Cream cheese avocado egg rolls. And split the Declaration Day burger and fries YUM. It was a simple burger but very good. They have several burgers that look good...it will be on our"try everyone one" list. They come in very clever serving containers... They look like the containers your big Mac comes in, but metal...cute concept. After dinner I ordered a drink called the Killer Queen made with Honey, lemon, gin and a small honey comb as a garnish...I suggest this one.. It's good and light. My husband had a Hangar 18 made with Madori, lemon, and float of Cointreau, yes it was good. As you may have noticed the drinks are named after songs... You can zoom in on one of the pictures and see the list of drinks. While we drank this.. There are games available to play.. We played Connect Four while enjoying our drinks. For the finish desert, we ordered the table S'mores.. comes with of course marshmallows and graham crackers and chocolate...but also came with 2 Reece's peanut butter cups (can I just say I've been doing this since the early 90's...I should have marketed it🤣) and a small strawberry compote which is actually good drizzled on it. It wasn't so loud with music blaring like most places you could actually talk and a somewhat normal voice. Even the bathrooms were very clever (picture posted "Pink Floyd the Wall" and the colored records). Our bartender was Danielle...very friendly, personable and very attentive... people were friendly.. locals, and talked to several...

Very disappointed with our trip today. We wanted to give this place another try after a subpar experience last time in but unfortunately this will be our last time eating here. The atmosphere and decor is spot on and we enjoy the vibe but that's where it ends. We were seated today and after quite a wait, maybe 6 to 7 mins, were able to place our drink order. We weren't asked about appetizers at that point. We recieved our beers but no follow up on an order until the server returned at 30 mins after we had been seated to take our order. We ordered our appetizer and meal at the same time. It was another approx 10 mins until the appetizers arrived almost immediately backed by the meal. The food was OK, but not good enough to save this trip. As I came to the end of my beer I noticed that there was some type of scum INSIDE on the bottom of my glass that I was able to scratch off and that the whole bottom outside of the glass had some gross build up that I could scratch out with my fingernail. It was black and sludgelike. Absolutely disgusting. We were never offered the opportunity to order a second drink, had very little interaction from the server and it looked to be pretty understaffed. We were never offered to go boxes for our leftovers and had to track down another server to get our check since we had placed an order and didn't want the food to just sit there as we waited for our check to be brought. Overall not a good experience at all. Cleanliness is pretty important as is service and based on the experience today we will...