Farmers Brewing Restaurant & Taproom — Restaurant in Chico

Sheer disappointment! Manager was very personal trying to pick a fight & misunderstood us! 1st off I’m visiting from out of town with my infant child for my moms 70th birthday which we decided to have here. we were not happy with the food, lots of Mayo on salad, clam chowder tasted old (according to the birthday lady), nachos were a hit, beer was confusing no descriptions, burgers were plain, beet salad was alright, charcuterie board was sad (cheese was decent), come time for our check we had all these unknown charges for cheese on the burgers, side of ranch (when we were told it came with the dish), & a gratuity of 40$ since we had 4 little kids with us when most establishments don’t count them which was very unexpected. Asked to speak to manager & he was trying to fight with my brother in law calling him JR & how he should be embarrassed to act like this in front of his kids saying we were all an embarrassment acting like we wanted our meal for free when we just didn’t understand the extra charges. They told us we ate all our food as the table was cleared by the waitress when we in fact we didnt & told us they gave us a dessert since the clam chowder wasn’t good, even though it was my moms birthday & assumed they would give her a dessert anyhow. I’ve never seen a manger be so personally degrading he even told my 7 year old nephew he should be embarrassed of his parents. & when I mentioned that I didn’t eat all of my pork belly bowl they grabbed my leftovers & said they were going to throw it away if I didn’t like it. never in my life have I ever seen a restaurant manager act like that. I fear for your restaurant & would like to get in touch with the owner to go into detail about how this escalated. We go out to eat a lot, we know people who are heavily involved in the community who we will be telling about our terrible experience here. I would be absolutely mortified if my employees acted this way...

Let’s start with the positives: The service was good, the waitstaff was very kind and on top of their tables. The ambiance was, okay. I’m not a giant fan of the new “modern/industrial” look that places are going for but the restaurant was clean and there wasn’t a lot of noise.

Now for the negatives: We ordered 3 items: the angry shrimp, the french onion burger and the crab roll. Between the three items there was near to zero flavor. The shrimp were undercooked, the only flavor that we could taste was the heat from the spice, nothing to suggest they the “spices bacon cream” was a part of the recipe not the “buttermilk, scallion biscuit” which was dry and bland. The french onion burger was cooked decently but the burger itself was unseasoned (or if it was I couldn’t taste it) and to it’s credit it was juicy but the only thing I could taste was mayonnaise and the Gruyère cheese. Nothing to say that there was “horseradish aioli”, “wagyu au-jus”, caramelized onion or even pickle. The salad it came with was sopping with the dressing it was served with but otherwise decent. As for the crab roll, it suffered the same fate as the burger wherein the only flavor was mayonnaise. It was greasy, the crab had no presence in the dish at all, and overall it was just flat. The fries were halfway decent, after we added some salt.

All of this cost about $70 (68 something, forgive me for not remembering exacts) which would be fine if we had gone to say, Crush or 5th Street Steakhouse or The Red Tavern, but for a brewery that has as much “atmosphere” as a dental clinic (and honestly I’m not paying for atmosphere I’m paying for the food and the wait service, let’s be honest here) with food that is worse than that of the majority of it’s competitors, One could say it’s a recipe...

Okay. It's been awhile since I've visited Chico. My buddy suggested we meet up at Farmers Brewery Co. I was intrigued instantly. As I walked up to the premise, the main entrance is through an outdoor patio/ outdoor dining decorated with lights and standup wall tables. I felt I just walked into an outdoor bar, which suits the Chico atmosphere aplenty. Once I made my way through the door, I found the gigantic windows all around the dining perfectly fit for all the ambient lights coming in, making it feel very outdoor but yet inside. Plenty of walking space between each table and guests were surrounded all about just every seat. This place was well thought out and it made me feel like going to a backyard BBQ.

Now, the food.... My buddy got the pork belly bowl, which looked fire. I should of gotten one too but I cannot turn down a great burger. I wasn't wrong for doing so. The outlaw burger was on point for what a restaurant burger ought to be. Hands down, if I'm going to get a burger, a restaurant burger, it has to be qualities like this one. Thick slices of bacon, two juicy charbroil patties on top of some what looked like pastrami, two onion rings, melted cheese and splattered BBQ sauce all over.

Go if you haven't,. Next time I visit Chico, I definitely will go back. Nice enjoyable family environment and great face paced working staff. They have a bar that splits between indoors and outdoor for the nice summer nights. Yo, can't get any better for Chico. Located off 20th Street behind WinCo and in the newer development...