1850 Restaurant and Brewery — Restaurant in Oakhurst

I never leave poor reviews but had to after our experience last night. If you’re looking for a dining experience that doubles as vampire repellent, congratulations—you’ve found the garlic capital of California. My friends and I dropped by after a day in Yosemite and started with the 1850 Fries and Ahi Nachos. The smell of garlic hit my nostrils before the fries even arrived at the table. They were absolutely smothered in the stuff. I’ll be sweating garlic for weeks. Even the regular fries with my burger were coated in enough garlic to make Dracula file a restraining order. I’ll eat basically anything and I think I ate 4 fries, covered in ketchup in an attempt to cover the garlic, before giving up. There are other reviews with fries that clearly aren’t as garlicky, so I’m not sure what the deal was last night. I’m Italian, I generally like garlic, and this was way too much. As I write this, 12 hours after our dinner, I’m inhaling water and brushing my teeth multiple times in an attempt to get rid of my garlic breath.

On the bright side, service was decent, my Hotshot burger was good, and my wife enjoyed her salmon. If you can survive the garlic onslaught, there’s hope. As for the drinks, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drink straight from a hummingbird feeder, just order a cocktail here. Our Lavender Lemonade and Blueberry Peach Lemon Drop tasted like someone confused the bar with a candy store. Unless your idea of a good time is mainlining syrup, I’d recommend sticking to the beer. In summary: if you’re actively trying to ward off the undead or auditioning to be a hummingbird, this is your spot. Otherwise, steer clear of anything with garlic and avoid the cocktails, and you might salvage...

Stopped here for lunch the day after a long Yosemite hike. The outdoor seating was nice and a great way to relax and soak in some sunshine.

Food- Finney fries: was honestly a little disappointed. Fries were not hot or crispy (even the ones not covered in beer cheese). Would have preferred the garlic flavor to have been more of a roasted garlic flavor (but that’s probably a personal preference). Steak on the fries was solid but if I was coming back here I’d probably just stick with the sweet potato fries which looked better at the tables around us.

Steakhouse burger: definitely the best thing we had! I would say it was a little light on bbq sauce (could not taste it at all) but overall really liked the bacon, cheese, onion ring combo.

Mediterranean Salad: way too much dressing so definitely ask for it on the side, but the quinoa cakes were incredible (perfect texture - crunchy/fried and very yummy). It was hard to really taste the other ingredients (tomatoes, artichoke hearts, etc) without an insane amount of dressing so can’t say much about them.

Drinks- beers were solid but nothing crazy, timber & trail were our favorites hippy (seltzer): really good flavor but could be bubblier

Overall I would come back for a burger with a different kind of fries and/or salad with quinoa cake + dressing...

We recently stayed a couple nights in Mariposa and dined at a few of the restaurants around town including the 1850 Restaurant & Brewery on the main road in town. Opening hours are 11am to 9pm daily.

Our visit was rather late when the kitchen was closing. As such, we only tried the artichoke dip and a round of drinks at their bar. The artichoke dip was mostly a garlic cream cheese dip with a light amount of artichoke flavour. We could see tiny bits of spinach but couldn't taste it. The dip was served with pancake naan slices which was interesting. In the end, this was an ok starter but we'd try for something different next time.

We tried a couple of this in house beers as well. The Dark Horse coffee stout was decent, a bit bitter but the coffee, caramel and chocolate notes came through. We also tried the Butter Cup, a peanut butter brown ale. Strong presence of peanut butter aroma. Otherwise, wasn't a big fan of this particular beer. Would reorder the Dark Horse but try other beers over the Butter Cup next time around.

In the end, we liked the atmosphere at 1850 and the young lady behind the counter was very pleasant. We didn't fare as well with our orders as we had hoped but would likely give this place another try to see how we felt about other items...