Steak & Whisky American Tavern — Restaurant in Hermosa Beach

We came here for a friend's birthday. There was 10 of us. The restaurant was about half full so it wasn't super busy at the time. There was a few problems that we ran into while we were dining here. First, some of our drinks kept getting ignored or delayed for at least 20 minutes. Our waiter started blaming us for ordering it with the wrong staff member. Yes we did order some of our drinks from different people because we couldn't find our waiter most of the time. He was busy doing something else even though the restaurant was only half full. However, the drinking in question was ordered directly from him and he couldn't explain why after 30 minutes the wine was still not out. It's not even a cocktail all they had to do was pour it out. At one point I told another friend he wasn't getting his drink because the bartender would just standing around doing nothing and he had place his order 20 minutes ago. My friend had to get up and go to the bar to tell that bartender himself that he had ordered drink 20 minutes ago and it's still not being made. One person had ordered his steak medium rare and it came out as well done. It was way off so we had to send it back and get it done again. It was more delayed of course. For the price point of this restaurant, this seems unusual that the chef did not know how to cook this steak. I wasn't sure if our waiter was trying to be funny or rude. If he was trying to be funny, his joke s had fallen flat because you just came off as rude most of the time. For example, he refused to take our order because the first person still hasn't decided and he insisted on taking order in the seat that we were sitting in and the first first person that he was taking order for wasn't ready even though the rest of us were ready and he couldn't just skip one person and get the rest of the orders. So he told us he was going to come back when everyone was ready. The second person was ready to order but he ignored him and just kept going off about how we need to be ready. In fact, the first second person kept getting ignored throughout the evening. Overall, the whole experience just left the sour taste...

This place is a hidden gem hiding in plain sight. It’s like looking for your sunglasses sitting on your head. It has everything you could ask for. Great: service, atmosphere, music, drinks, food, & prices. That doesn’t mean it’s cheap, simply a great bargain for what your getting. Essentially I paid $25 for a plate where other I would have expected to be charged 2-3 times that given the location, atmosphere, quality, and service. I had the Bourbon Braised Beef Short Ribs and substituted the polenta with broccolini due to an allergy at the recommendation of the restaurant manager Grant who, by the way, was our server. The meat was so tender and juicy it was amazing. Everything was cooked to perfection and the bourbon glaze was addicting and I wanted to lick the plate. The bottled water provided was “Top Shelf”. It was Hawaii Volcanic Water which comes in a 26.5oz glass bottle and is naturally alkaline to a ph level of 7.7-8.4 and lava filtered.

Due to the Covid-19 shutdowns the manager was managing to train many new employees and to assist with the team he wisely chose to be a waiter for a few tables while other waiters & servers train the new waiters & servers. This way he ensures the customer experience is not diminished in any way as the entire staff works through the challenges. It was genius and the company is very fortunate to have a manager that saw a very unique way to attack this challenge unlike other places that not only push all their struggles on to their customers but charge them more while their at it. This place was amazing and if you haven’t tried it you really need to. Make sure you make a reservation to ensure you have the best experience possible and don’t get stuck waiting all night for a table as I’m sure when the pandemic is over this place will be very sought after and it will also help the restaurant plan...

Very poor experience this evening unfortunately. My friend and I visited for a special night seeing the reviews on here being so good, however we have been very disappointed. We were told our waitress would be with us shortly and had to wait 10 minutes post being seated to even be spoken to. On greeting us we simply got a ‘hi’ no introduction of herself or to the menu, just hi. We ordered our drinks and food altogether given we had been waiting so long. The starter came out almost immediately while my cocktail still hadn’t arrived after 15 minutes and which I had to chase only to be told we don’t know what happened and dumped on the table without much of an apology, but we didn’t complain. The starter which was half a dozen oysters came out one short (see photo), but we didn’t complain again as we didn’t want to make a scene. When the main course arrived the sides came out First and 2/3 were cold, so we had to return. The steaks were good I will give them that. But on returning the 2 sides they were the same we had returned only very mildly Warmer and not edible so we had to send these back. At the end of the meal we asked for the check and there was not the slightest apology for the service (or lack thereof) or the issue with the drink and food and yet we were charged in full for everything and still paid this without complaint. $200 for what was possibly one of the poorest experiences I have had in a steakhouse. We initially had planned to have wine with our meal and desserts and would have spent a lot more had the service been evenly remotely better but quite frankly we just wanted to get out of there. Would...