Redwood Café — Restaurant in Modesto

Let me start by saying that the food here is pricey, but excellent. The cocktails are amazing and the wine is up to par. That said, tonight was my 3rd time visiting this restaurant with my wife. The first time, in 2019, we called and made a reservation for my wife's birthday. When we showed up, they found no record of our reservation and after about 10 minutes of trying to figure it out, we walked out. The manager followed behind and caught up to us; and immediately accommodated us and got us a table on the back patio area. That was fine.

The second time was during father's day 2019 and the brunch was amazing. That second experience I felt they had redeemed themselves from the first. However, this brings us to tonight, having made a reservation for 7pm for my five year marriage anniversary. Below I will list the issues we experienced tonight:

1 - We showed up at exactly 6:56pm and had to park along the canal; which was an absolute nightmare to pull out of when we left. However, upon checking in at the back entrance at 7pm, we were told our table was not yet ready and it would be five minutes. It was 15 minutes later we were actually seated. 2 - We ordered our drinks and appetizer, which we received at 7:30pm. It was then we made our order for the dinner. We did not receive our dinner until 8:33pm. During that time, we watched two other tables that showed up after us receive and complete their meals. 3 - The outdoor patio experience was absolute trash, and I don't use that type of description often. Firstly, the sun was coming down directly into our faces. Secondly, the lighting is so terrible back there that when it got darker, we couldn't see much of anything and several lights were flickering so bad we both got headaches (still have the headache while writing this). 4 - The aforementioned may not have been so terrible, save the fact my father was watching our son at home and it was 1.5 hours after our reservation that we actually got our food. Because of everything, we both of us became irritated and spent about five minutes actually eating our food before we stewed enough to ask for food boxes to leave.

Lastly I will say that Sienna (sp?), our waitress, was very very good and empathetic when I brought these issues up to her. It isn't her fault and she was very attentive to us. She consistently checked up on us, and in fact we were having a decent time there initially and hadn't thought about how long the food was taking until the sun went down and we developed irritating headaches because of the lighting.

All that said, we both of us decided that our experiences tonight and in the past were not up to par with $200 dinners. We will not be visiting The Redwood Cafe any further, but do hope that others enjoy their experiences there. If you have not yet tried the Pork Schnitzel and / or the Smoked Manhattan, they are an...

Been coming here for some years now and the food and service used to be and feel a 10/10. Lately, that is not the case. On a few visits now we have had cocktails in the modern garden and the staff are always rude and service is slow. Last night in particular we had dining reservations for 8 pm at the restaurant. The waitress was very disconnected, we had to ask her what the specials for the evening were otherwise she wouldn't bother sharing. We asked for sriracha with our shrimp appetizer and she said they didn't carry it (we get it every time). We weren't offered bread, had to ask and it came ice cold. Our waitress kept apologizing that they were running out of things due to being so busy (not our problem). Maybe the restaurant shouldn't be so money hungry and only take on the number of guests they can provide quality service to. I ordered the filet mignon and for a $55 plate the presentation was awful, not to mention they didn't even cook it to my liking. We also got a pizza and it came ice cold. At the end of our meals we weren't offered dessert menus, rather asked "can I get you anything else this evening". Our waitress was in a rush to get us in & out. When you're spending $130+ for 2 people to dine, you expect the same quality of service and ambiance. Not to mention our table was near the very loud bar and the type of crowd this place is attracting lately isn't so pleasant. Redwood will moving forward be the last place of choice for a more "formal" dining option locally for us since they cannot seem to get it together after...

We have been dining here for special occasions for 20+ yrs. The meals have always been exceptional tasting never a disappointment, however no matter how great tasting the meal if the service is poor or your patronage is not valued it will ruin the dining experience. Such was our case. Quickly stated. At 5pm (Our reservation time) we went to the Dale Rd entrance and the door was locked. We waited till 5:10 when I called the Hostess and was told to enter on the Bangs Rd.side. When we walked up to the Bangs Rd. entrance door there was a sign on it that said “enter on the Dale Rd side”. Frustrated we entered in the door and found an employee inside the dining room where our table was suppose to be reserved, the employee told us we had to go back outside and go to the outside gate and check in with the hostess? What? I explained to them we’d both done enough walking due to our disabilities and we were leaving. How can you enjoy a meal after this. I contacted the Manager on the phone while we were in the parking lot and he could not explain why there was no signage on the Dale Rd main entrance and improper signage on the Bangs Rd entrance and made no mention of correcting that issue. Basically he could care less about what we experienced. But all ends well as we drove to Mike’s Grill-house and enjoyed an amazing Halibut dinner, fantastic clam chowder, but most of all the service we received was above and beyond even though Mike’s Grill-House was filled...