Garlic City Cafe — Restaurant in Gilroy

On our way traveling past Gilroy, we decided to sample their famed garlic at some local establishment. "Garlic City Cafe" proudly proclaims the theme in its name, so we headed there for lunch.

Unfortunately, we all found our meals rather lacking. I ordered a Crab Melt Sandwich with their homemade Cream of Garlic soup on the side, my husband got a Calamari Steak Sandwich with a side of Garlic Fries ($1.50 extra to the meal cost), and several of our friends ordered the Garlic City Burger. Each entrée came with two slices of watermelon, which were a nice addition.

Crab Melt Sandwich - this was just alright. The crab cake was nothing to write home about and in general, the flavors were mild and not standout. I wouldn't order this again.

Calamari Steak Sandwich - this was REALLY bizarre. Somehow, the calamari was sliced into a thin "steak" shape and sandwiched along with some lettuce and tomatoes, all seasoned with chipotle mayo. The textures really did NOT work well- namely, the wet squish of the calamari with the bright tomatoes and crisp lettuces... it was just all a bit of a confused mess. Do NOT get this, unless they change how they make it in the future...

Cream of Garlic Soup - this was really strong, and not in an appetizing way. It has herbs and potatoes in it (as well as some penne pasta, for some odd reason), which is fine, but the overall effect was just overwhelmingly garlic-musk-heavy. My husband LOVES garlic as a general rule, and even he thought this was funky and didn't like it. :(

Garlic Fries - these were pretty "meh". Crinkle-cut fries (which could easily have been frozen before) sprinkled with a mix of garlic and herbs. It was pretty bland tasting and the textures weren't standout, either.

Garlic City Burger - the "garlic" component of this dish is just a few cloves of roasted garlic plopped onto a fairly thin charbroiled patty. One of our friends ordered it "medium" while the others ordered "medium-rare", and none of them could see a difference between their patties (i.e. all of them were pretty darn cooked through). The rest of the dish is pretty simple with some slices of cheese, lettuce, and tomato. It overall felt like a bit of a disappointment given the price tag (I could have easily made this at home).

That said, a couple of our friends were fans of the Strawberry & Banana smoothie (one of them curiously reported seeing the owners throw some tangerines into the mix) and declared that this ended up being their favorite part of the meal. One of my friends ordered a Chicken & Prawns Fettuccine and was the only one who seemed to thoroughly appreciate her entrée.

Additionally, our receipt was incomprehensible. The itemized list had everything listed strangely as "Item A" (or something like this) all the way down. There were over a dozen lines of "Item A"! It was impossible to tell who had ordered what (for the purposes of splitting the bill).

Whereas this café provides good portion sizes and fresh ingredients, their cooking (textures and flavors) could use some serious work. Also, although we were the only ones in the restaurant at the time (it was a late lunch for us), some of us had to ask for water 4 times before it arrived. I would not recommend coming here, given other options.

While researching places to try, I had noticed multiple BBQ joints in the area. I would personally look into a meal at one of those instead, if given another day...

Really don't waste your time coming here! Everyone is rude, the wait is long, they overcharge, they'll give you the wrong food AND the watterss tried to argue to me about it.

I asked the waitress for recommendations and she just mumbled I don't give recommendations because everyone's always unhappy about it. The second guy I asked said he loved all pastas...so took me some time to choose.

When I was ready to choose I said I wanted the rigatoni pasta to the guys there and they said to wait for the waitress. The waitress took my order, I said rigatoni and pointed at the bottom of the menu and asked for the garlic soup because it comes with the pasta.

She charged me $18 for the pasta but it says $17 on the menu. Also charged me $2 extra for the garlic creams soup even though it costs the same as the other soup? Whatever I just wanted to order to go and leave.

After waiting 30 minutes to pay I get my food and leave and have to come back because they got my order wrong! I know the guy checked too and he kept asking me if I ordered the rigatoni and looked at the food and didn't say anything. Then the waitress came quickly swiped my card two times and just said asked for another payment. So I paid cash and got some change back. I left already and looked at the food in the car and had to drive back because it was a completely different pasta! Different meat different pasta. It was the shrimp fettuccine so no way I could have accidently ordered it.

When I came back the waitress argued to me about my order someone had to jump in to confirm I wanted rigatoni to actually give me a refund.

Even when I gave back the 2 dimes so I don't have to carry around change the waitress was being petty and gave me back the quarters and slammed the register saying she...

I came here with my friend today.

I had never been here but had been wanting to try it. I’m glad I came because it’ll be my first and last time.

They have limited seating and only one server. It was lunch time & pretty full so I understand why it’d take so long.

However, they brought my friend’s coke, took our order and still had not brought out my coffee. I had to ask for my coffee and they told us they had to brew the coffee. I continued to wait.

When my tiny cup of coffee arrived, she asked if I wanted flavored creamer and I said yes.

She brought me creamer with some open containers.

My first impression upon seeing this is they are not throwing away the empty creamers after they clean the tables. Second thought was this is unsanitary and disgusting. Someone else touched this and they didn’t bother to clean it or throw it away.

When she came to take our order, I asked her what she recommended from several items. I asked her if the onions were grilled, she didn’t know and turned around to ask the gentleman, and walked away. She didn’t answer my question; she just walked away.

When my sandwich arrived, it didn’t have any onions. The chicken was super chewy and semi cold. It was supposed to have chipotle but all I could taste was bbq- I am not a huge fan of bbq sauce.

My mug was so small, I needed more coffee, but the server wasn’t coming over to our table. I placed the mug at the edge of the table so she could see it.

We had to leave since we were on lunch, my friend went up to the counter to pay. The server wanted us to split it in half. My friend explained she wanted to pay for her food and I’d pay for mine.

My friend and I left feeling so disappointed, especially after paying $17 for a...