Napa Yard - Oxbow Gardens — Restaurant in Napa

I had a wedding welcome party for about 70 people at Napa Yard and want to share my experience specifically about planning a large event here.

Overall, I think Napa Yard is a wonderful place. I want to especially shout out Nate, the bar manager, and Ibrahim, who helped manage our party the day-of. I think that this would be a 2 star review if not for them.

I found communication and misinformation to be issues while planning. I imagine this is due to the fact that they're still working out the kinks with private events, having only been open for about a year. But we met with folks a few times in-person at Napa Yard, and then would follow up via email to confirm what we had spoken about. We constantly got different answers via email than we did in-person.

For example, when we initially visited, we were told by an assistant manager that there was no rental fee to reserve a space, and that there was no food & beverage minimum. We then followed up via email and were told that this was wrong and there was, indeed, a fee and a f&b minimum. We knew it was too good to be true! So that was a bummer, but understandable.

Another example...we asked, in-person, on a different visit, what the cost would be for a satellite bar in our space so our guests wouldn't need to wait in line at the regular bar. We were told, "oh, about $1000 for the whole event (3 hours)." When we followed up via email, we were told the actual cost for a satellite bar was $3500 for 2 hours. That's a huge difference. I have no idea how this could be mixed up.

Yet another example, we asked if we could open a bar tab and use drink tickets rather than getting a beverage package. We were told yes, and that Napa Yard would provide the tickets, hand them out, AND provide wristbands to avoid any confusion at the bar. Then, a day before our party, we received an email from them confirming that we had the drink tickets for our guests. We also never received wristbands. And when we arrived, they seemed to have no idea that we were providing drink tickets, despite asking us about it the day before! Luckily we were able to work it out, and a host handed out tickets to our guests as they arrived. We did have a few issues with bartenders being rude or not understanding the ticket situation, but Nate was able to resolve it all. He was seriously awesome.

One other thing, not a huge deal, was that our rental space (the plum grove) had poor lighting. They had a couple of spotlights, and a couple of strands of string lights, but a bunch of our tables were in the dark. Having more lighting would have been really nice.

Overall, I'm happy that we chose Napa Yard, but I think they really need to iron out their communication and make sure that all employees are on the same page. It was super frustrating to keep getting told different things via email...

I don’t normally leave reviews but I felt compelled to share my experience here. I’m new to the area and this place was conveniently located with a great atmosphere and nice view. Unfortunately I had a terrible experience and will not be returning. My boyfriend and I wanted to order a pitcher of beer at the bar, we sampled a couple and decided on a sour we both liked. Before we paid the employee came over with his manager who apologized and said they don’t normally sell pitchers of the sour because it would cost $70 for the one pitcher compared to the normal pitcher cost of $35, but said it was their mistake and if we didn’t want to purchase no hard feelings. We ended up just getting two pints and that was that. After we sat down we ordered food (2 onion rings and 1 pulled pork sandwich). After an hour, one order of onion rings came out and they were cold, but no sign of the rest of our food. After waiting another 45 minutes we finally asked an employee if she could check on our order and she told us the kitchen was closed but she would try to see why we never got our food. About 15 minutes later the manager brought our plate out and apologized, just saying they were understaffed and the order got overlooked. He offered us a free drink, shot or dessert to make it up to us so we agreed. We waited another 45 minutes until there wasn’t a single other customer left and it was after closing time before we finally just left, never having received any sort of “free” anything. This place has great potential but seems poorly managed and understaffed. 2 stars only because the food, although cold with extremely small overpriced portions,...

Great place BUT the kids are OUT OF CONTROL and anyone who was here on Saturday around 6:00 pm would agree!

A baseball team of young boys came in and who knows where the parents were ??? Shame on those parents.

First the boys began by throwing water from the water containers. They were dumping cups of water over each others heads and then at each other..

then proceeded to the bags area and throw bean bags at each other .. No parent to be seen

From there they went by the Apple trees and were climbing the trees.. hitting the trees with baseball bats to get more apples down to throw at each other.. I did not ONCE see a parent.

This is my first time in the area and I will NEVER return..

I have never seen in my life such a disregard and I didn’t see management anywhere..

finally I told the girl at the front to get the manager and we left. The baseball team had something like .. Beau Wine Tours on the jersey..

Management if you allow children I wouldn’t count on the parents in this area to watch the children you NEED to have more presence.. they destroyed your Apple orchard area.. take a look at all the apples that were hit with baseball bats around.. they were several kids who climbed the trees with bats hitting all the apples down.. We saw a parent as we left who was checking his kids back for welts from the apples.. maybe check on your kid from time to time…

So unreal.. I’m still trying to process how no one...