Hydro Grill — Restaurant in Calistoga

Heed this warning: Do not eat here.

In one meal, we experienced food floating in our beverage, a human hair in our sandwich, and a dead insect in the replacement sandwich.

If all this wasn’t bad enough, there was a barking dog inside the restaurant, and we were charged $8 more than the prices listed on the menu.

In summary: Our root beer came to the table in a bottle. With it, they also brought a glass of ice. After pouring the soda into the glass, food particles were floating in the liquid. It was a bottled soda, so this came from a dirty glass. Gross.

The sandwich we ordered had a human hair imbedded in the filling of the sandwich. Disgusting.

They remade the sandwich and it and no hair. However, after eating most of it, we found a dead insect inside. Nauseating.

I wouldn’t normally care too much about the dog, but it was barking in the dining room (it was not a service animal). Combined with the other stuff, it suggests this restaurant operates without any health or safety oversight.

The cherry on top was that our party ordered glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. It was listed on the menu at a $10 per glass. It wasn’t until we’d reviewed our receipt later that we saw we were charged $12 per glass, for a total of an $8 overcharge.

And while they did take the sandwich off the bill, it hardly mattered since we were overcharged...

I was shocked and disappointed with this place. It has such great potentional being in the main street in calistoga and a cool brick building. However, it fell horribly flat. So many things wrong. The bar never seemed to get cleaned off. There were multiple seats open but it never got bussed so each seat was filthy. We sat near the end by the kitchen and POS system. Interesting view point. We almost walked out after waiting so long to be served. Finally the bartender noticed us. I tried a local bourbon (not much to go wrong there) and my wife wanted a mango cosmo. They were out of mango. What about watermelon? Out. Ok, so she went with the BlackBerry cosmo. It was nasty. The owner of bar walked (more like wobbled drunk on wine) around chatting with some friends. Then we ordered some sweet potato fries to share. While we were waiting for them, one of the waitresses walked out of the kitchen twice eating one of OUR fries!!! They ended up tasting pretty good. However, something tasted wrong with the dipping sauce and I was right. My wife got sick from it and threw up all night in our hotel room. Stay away from...

Five stars because it's "our" place and it never disappoints. Comfortable broad menu, some truly excellent dishes, non-fussy service, kitchen will stay open to 11pm or later on busy nights. Now in 2022, the menu is still full of super tasty dishes. Roast pork shoulder with mash potatoes. A very different and always satisfying baked chile rellano filled with creamy green rice, side of black beans and fresh salad is perfect for lunch or a light supper. Ahi salad my husband has ordered many, many times during summer. Asian salad also just right in warm weather. Ravioli and an Alfredo pasta. Perfect french fries, calamari with chipotle dip, always excellent burger, four or five desserts. A complete bar. They used to, pre-covid, have live dance music on Saturday nights most of the year... Now we enjoy their excellent jazz 4 piece with vocalist Elaine Jennings on Sunday evenings. Tiny dance floor but some great jazzy...