Julianna's Restaurant — Restaurant in Castroville

I came here on Saturday, October 28th at around 12:20pm with my mother, my father, and my five week old infant. My parents were visiting from out of state. They heard my husband and I rave about Julianna’s from our past experiences and wanted to eat here. However, based on what happened Saturday, it will be a long time before I return, if I ever do.

We arrived and were promptly seated. There was a large table of about twenty people eating. However, they had all received their food when we arrived at the restaurant and were being taken care of by a male waiter who was working hard.

When we were seated, we were seated next to a table by the booths. Besides the large party, in the entire restaurant, there was a couple at one booth, a family seated next to us, and our table. In the span of approximately 15 minutes, not a single person stopped by our table to say they would be a moment or to ask for our drink order. The female waitress tending to the booth right next to us serviced the booth seven times while we were waiting.

Because I have an infant and the window of time when she is asleep and calm is short when we are in public, as well as the high cost of eating out, we decided to leave when the hostess and the female waitress were on their phones at the counter and no one had, still, even acknowledged that we were waiting. That was the last straw. Honestly, my mother and I wanted to leave sooner than we had, but my father really wanted to try the pizza. Next time my parents are in town, we will go to Hondough Pizza instead when someone has a pizza craving, because I KNOW I will receive excellent service there.

Of course, when we left Julianna’s, the wait staff, who were keeping “busy” behind the bar, would NOT make eye contact with us because they were totally ignoring us. I don’t know her name, but I was also surprised by the woman whom I presume to be the manager, as I have seen her running operations during several evenings before. She wasn’t even paying attention to the customers or employees. Otherwise (at least I hope), she would have told the employee(s) that there is a table of three adults who have been sitting for 15 minutes and haven’t been acknowledged.

Too bad for whoever was assigned to wait on our table, though, because my parents tip between 30%-50% when we go out to restaurants. We ended up going to Hermann Sons where we were waited on immediately (literally—the waitress was taking our drink order before I had even fully sat down and settled the baby carrier in the sling), served delicious food, and they were super busy. Yet, the service...

I wish I could leave less than one star for the food. First off I ordered beef fajita soup that was some kind beef stew meat chopped up in a soupy liquid that was poured so full of powdered fajita seasoning it couldn’t even fully dissolve , so suppose that seasoning is what turns beef soup into beef fajita soup?? I ordered a hamburger steak which turned out to be a dried out, premade, precooked, FROZEN charbroiled burger patty right off the Sysco truck. I ordered without the “ mushroom Demi glacé” because I can’t eat mushrooms. And when they brought it out I asked for brown gravy (so I could try to rehydrate the poor little thing so I could possibly swallow it)and was told they don’t have that. The server had been quite pleasant and attentive up until that point, constantly filling drinks and checking on us, but when she asked if everything was okay with the food and I told her no because I had ordered a hamburger steak and not a premade frozen hamburger patty ( which at that point I was pretty sure had already been sitting under a heat lamp on a bun waiting to be served as a burger and removed and put on my plate) her whole attitude changed and she stated “ No, you ordered a hamburger steak without the Demi glaze which is what makes a hamburger patty a hamburger steak”. Apparently that’s only the case at Julianna’s. I told her it wasn’t her fault and it just wasn’t any good and not what I wanted. So she took it away only to not return and check on anyone else at our table until she brought the bill. They had removed the so called hamburger steak from my bill and I went ahead and tipped the server as though it was still there because it wasn’t the servers fault that the food sucked and up until the problem with my meal came up, she was very good and two wrongs don’t make a right although I definitely didn’t appreciate her change in attitude and the fact that everyone else at the table received crappy service from then on. I definitely don’t recommend this restaurant. It might make a great lunch time burger joint after a round of golf but it’s definitely not the type of place the try to portray...

This restaurant COULD HAVE BEEN EXCELLENT with the exception of a few things that happened. The food was excellent, although it is rather overpriced for what you get on your plate. The seating process is VERY jacked up!! I saw quite a few parties who arrived after ours that were seated before our party of 4, and there was an empty 6-top in the main dining room that sat empty for at least an hour. I realize that it was a Friday evening, but we sat in the lobby area waiting to be seated for OVER AN HOUR!! We even asked the hostess about people who were being taken to what ended up being a second dining room down the hallway from the main dining room, and she told us that it was for events only. When we finally did get seated, guess where it was?? In the back dining room!!! 🤪

So after we were finally seated, we got our drinks very quickly and ordered some appetizers. However, there was evidently some sort of a problem in the kitchen, bcuz we didn't get our 2 appetizers served until about 45 minutes later. Our server, Grace was not the problem whatsoever, as we could see that she was also having problems bcuz of how slow the kitchen was. I'm not absolutely sure if we'll ever go back there again, but possibly not on a Friday evening.

Also, it would make it a MUCH MORE PLEASANT dining experience if the owners could entertain the possibility of installing some sound-absorbing material on the ceilings in both dining rooms, bcuz you can hardly even hear yourself THINK with all of the noise from people's conversations going on in there. 🙉 We noticed towards the end of our visit that the noise level was gradually receding, little by little until you could actually hear yourself...