Lumberyard — Restaurant in Laguna Beach

Where to start...

So the ambiance was that of an old bar with the old stale air and dust to go along with it. Dark and cavernous as an old cave would be.. if not for the Christmas lights and decorations which made it tolerable.

Luckily for us there was a live band performing.. or should I say rambling along with their instruments. The music was more of a nuisance than a pleasure as it was loud, and prevented the table from having conversation.

The service was average with the waitress checking in on us once (to offer dessert or the bill) after taking our initial order in our 55 minute long stay.

Food on the other hand was not good. The chicken pot pie had a nice crust but the contents underneath were not at all appetizing. The mixture of vegetables and chicken were lacking in flavor and appeal. The creme they were suspended in resembled a viscous lotion. Marie Calenders frozen chicken pot pie is superb in comparison.

The penne pasta in a "tomato" sauce was not much better. The chicken in this had the texture and taste of wet cardboard. The penne pasta was firm and undercooked. The sauce was more of a cream of tomato than actual tomato. A jar of Ragu or Prego would've better accompanied the dish. The fresh basil was the only thing that tasted normal in this dish.

The drinks were fine other than the water which did not taste filtered probably coming straight from the tap. A simple Brita filter would've gone a long way.

In summary I would not recommend this "restaurant" to anyone I know and care for. For the price, food, service and atmosphere I'd rather go to a steakhouse or roadside diner as they'd outperform The Lumberyard in every...

We decided to try five different dishes to give this place a fair try (and cause we really wanted to try it all). The Clam Chowder was more potato than anything else, resembling the texture of a Cambell's Soup and came with a big lump of Mash Potato in the middle of the bowl. Nothing special. The second dish was the Fried Calamari, not bad, came with two nice dips, but could have been left on a paper towel to absorb some of the excess oil. Third dish were the Lamb Meatballs which had rice in them (wish I had known this as I can't eat rice) they also tasted like curry - the cauliflower purée was not nice either. Would definitely discard that choice! Our fourth dish was a simple Cauliflower side dish (we needed some veggies in there) the dish was not fussy, simple, colorful (purple cauliflower) - nothing to rave about but not awful either, and lastly was the Tuna Poke... We should have known this kind of place wouldn't really have this dish down. All I could taste was soy sauce and onion - the avocado was good though. So all in all, the food left a lot to be desired. The decor was dark and a little grim for a summer/beach town. Service was ok. Just ok. No one checked on us to ensure that everything was as desired. Staff were not overly helpful nor friendly, which is very rare in this town. Verdict: we...

Has this restaurant been sold to a new owner or had massive turnover in it's chef's? We've been a few times in the last year and it's definitely not what it used to be. Menu items are slightly different, which can be expected to keep things interesting, however, the quality of the service and the food has gone downhill dramatically. Their service used to be on point with server's actually working for their tips and wanting to provide amazing service to their customers. Now it seems like they are all entry level positions with this being their first service job and they are trying to figure it out. The server disappears for most of the time, did not ask how the food was, we had to ask the poor busboy and food runner for help because the server never was around or came back; and the restaurant was not full or busy. I wanted to tip the busboy and food runner directly because they did most of the work and helped us more than our server. Food was okay, nothing really to write home about, definitely not what it used to be that's for sure...we have been truly disappointed the last few times and with so many restaurant options, I doubt we'll be back for a while and we are locals...