Loose Kaboose Diner — Restaurant in Long Beach

Updated review, originally visited in Nov 2019. Updated jul 2022. New owners.

Overall... 6/10 It's and interesting niche little place and fairly popular, however it took 15-20 minutes just to get drinks. Service is definitely slow. From sit down to food in front of us was around 40 minutes. I got the seafood combo basket. Fish was halibut: good. 3 shrimp: good. A crab cake and some oysters which were ok. The crab cake tasted like a veggie burger to me. The clams were good, if a bit over salted. They were out of chowder and out of tartar sauce so I had ketchup with everything. I didn't ask for ice in my drink but my soda was warm direct from their dispenser. They're supposed to be open till 8pm most days but closed an hour after we got there, at 6:30p because they were out of food. Dining room is set up a bit oddly, with it split in to two areas by a wall. The one room seems to have been an outside area once, and consequently it gets quite cold in there in the winter months. Part of the food prep appears to be done in one end of that room, however the restaurant seems generally clean (I didn't check their bathroom). A few of my mom's shrimp had been fried almost beyond recognition. When the train runs it squeaks and squeals. I was actually glad when they turned it off, it needs oiled. Overall it is a mom n pop operation and we would be willing to try them again on a day when...

So while I was in town I was dead set on getting some fish and chips. Unfortunately most of the places that came up when I did a Google search were closed. I was just about to give up when I seen this spot and quickly did a u-turn and pulled in for lunch. First off parking is atrocious especially when you're driving a giant van there just isn't that much room. That's okay though isn't that big of a deal for me I can walk. What I opened the door to was not at all what I expected. Rather than a nautical theme like most fish and chips spots they chose a logging theme thanks to the history of the train car that the restaurant is in. I really liked it. The waitress was helping another customer but offered me a seat and the menu. I decided on the combo that had a little bit of everything. I will admit service was a little bit slow but the food more than made up for it, well most of the food anyway I did not enjoy the fried oyster, yuck! Not that they were bad I just didn't like fried oysters, didn't know that, do now! The fish and prawns were delightful the breading was a little bland but still good. Crab cakes I could give or take. But the hits was the clams and clam chowder. WOW. I will definitely be back for some more of that. All in all it was about 40 bucks for a really big fish and chips dinner. Definitely a spot I will be taking friends too next...

I don't advise coming here. My husband and I were looking forward to halibut fish and chips during our camp trip. This was a very disappointing experience. The menu stated that the 2 piece fish came with coleslaw and choice of fries, salad or chowder. Also tartar sauce and cocktail sauce. They said they were out of chowder when we ordered. (a seafood restaurant with no clam chowder??) Anyway we went ahead with our order. When we got our food there was no coleslaw and no tartar sauce or cocktail sauce in the bag. My husband went back in to get the rest of our order. He was then told "well, we're out of coleslaw and tartar sauce." So we paid $40.29 for 4 pieces of fish and 2 orders of fries (about half of the items we stopped there for.) No chowder, no coleslaw, no tartar sauce. I wish we had gone to Bob's chowder house. UPDATE: Kellie, the owner, reached out to me and made it right. She's giving us a complimentary fish and chips the next time we're in town. There was a reasonable explanation for what happened so we'll be coming back. Kellie showed a lot of integrity by calling me with a sincere apology. By the way, the fish and chips that we got was delicious that day in spite of...