Cedar House Restaurant — Restaurant in Oakhurst

The restaurant comes across as a reasonably nice restaurant when you first walk in. On the walls there are high-quality pictures from various parts of Yosemite, the waiters are well dressed and the chairs and tables (which there are quite many of) look nice. For these reasons the $28 asking price for the meal of the day, salmon with teriyaki sauce, didn't surprise me too much.

The first red flag came when most of the tables in the restaurants were empty. In fact, only one of perhaps fifty tables was in use. This was around 6pm, and at this time of day you'd expect at least some guests. However, this in itself doesn't have to mean much.

What really raised my eyebrowes, was when the waiter - after taking our orders - pointed to a salad bar a few tables away from us, and said we could take whatever we wanted, as it was "included". I was concerned, because I thought, "is this what we are paying so much for"? For context, I had a chicken breast for $28, and the person I was there with had the $32 angus steak (apparently the prices have risen since the menu was published on here). We were there to eat what we, because of the price, expected to be some good food, not some salad buffet we didn't ask for. I became even more concerned when the salad bar basically consisted of salad ingredients on one end and dressing on the other. You almost had to be a chef yourself in order ot make anything good out of it. Not only that, the broccoli served in the salad bar was completely raw and cut in large pieces, making it almost impossible to eat. The raw broccoli also spoke to the low effort that was put into the bar, that we - keep in mind - had to pay for (even if we didn't know that was what we were doing at first).

This was worrying, but I thought the meal was still redeemable, if the actual dishes we ordered were good. However, they weren't. Half of my plate was filled with mashed potatoes, the sauce, which they called "BBQ-sauce", tasted so much like ketchup, that I suspect it was ketchup. The chicken - although it was actually reasonably crispy, so that was nice - was dry. And to top it all off the side of vegetables were close to unseasoned and looked like something which would be charming if a twelve year old made it - a colourfull mix of carrots, green beans and broccoli (this time actually cooked), but it looks unappealing and tastes almost nothing. You expect more from a restaurant, especially at this price.

The final straw, which made me realize how far gone this restaurant is, was when the waiters at no point cared to ask how the food was. To any normal restaurant, feedback is the way to improvement or, at least, the way to make sure standards aren't dropping. However here, the customer's experience clearly wasn't of importance. They wanted $72 for the meal (we also had two ice tea's, in addition to the entre's), though, although it took them unreasonably long to give us the receipt after we asked for it.

To close off this already way too long review: The food would be acceptable at a lower cost and if the restaurant presented itself as more of a casual place to stop on your drive - not a "nice" restaurant with dressed up waiters, high-quality pictures on the wall and prices to match that. When the food quality is subpar and most of the seats are empty, what is "nice" just comes across as pretentious. All in all, when the waiters don't even care to ask how the food is/was, the restaurant comes off as low-quality and cheap (although it is expensive), while the staff seem like...

If I could give this place 0 stars I would.

This place is truly a once in a lifetime experience, as in I will never be returning.

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and immediately realized that they gave up less than halfway through? That’s here. The chandeliers on average had two lightbulbs out. The rest of the room was lit by a light over each table, some warm lights and some harsh fluorescent lights.

You’d think with this wonderful atmosphere they’d want to liven it up a bit by having some music playing to distract you. Nope. It was so silent in the restaurant you could hear an ant fart. The restaurant was relatively full and everyone looked so uncomfortable. It didn’t help that two servers assistants were standing in the corner of the restaurant just staring at everyone.

My girlfriend and I waited to be seated for a few minutes and were escorted to a table with a hanging overhead light that was so bright that I was waiting for Batman to pop out from behind me, slam my head on the table and say “You wanted me? Here I am.”

We waited for probably about 10 minutes for the one waitress (during peak Yosemite season) to come to our table. We ordered drinks and that was a mistake.

“The River” tasted like blue curacao mixed with hand sanitizer. “Yosemite Sunrise” was garnished with a dirty orange. I mean there was literal dirt on the orange.

When the waitress came back I ordered the chicken nachos to go. At this point we had been in the restaurant for at least 30 minutes and were ready to leave. The waitress responded “nachos to go” I corrected her and said “the chicken nachos to go” she wrote it down and walked away.

The food came out about 30 minutes later. What do you think was in my little box of joy? I’ll give you a hint. Not the chicken nachos. What my box contained was a Shakespearian tragedy, the likes of which I was wholly unprepared for. There, laying before my eyes were probably two handfuls of store bought tortillas chips drowning in bowling alley cheese and two spoonfuls of canned refried beans, and would you believe me if I said there not a shred of chicken in sight? I begrudgingly picked up a chip. To my horror it was floppy. The chips, or as the Brit’s call them “crisps” were the opposite of crisp.

I took the uncrisp crisps back to my room and ate them. Not because they were good but because they cost $17. I have never felt so personally attacked by a restaurant. I wasn’t expecting Mastros, I wasn’t even expecting Red Lobster, but at least give McDonalds.

After looking at other reviews I guess there’s a free salad bar that comes with your meal but nobody told us and it was nowhere on the menu, so that’s sick. Anyway, if you’re ever in Yosemite/El Portal and feel like being disappointed on every level, The Cedar House has...

Canyon Bar and Grill and Cedar House Restaurant are the same thing. They just changed the name to look a little better. The cashier was hostile, VERY UNPROFESSIONAL, and rude. All because what I wanted was not available and I asked what else was out. She took it wrong or was having a terrible say. But it does not change my experience. The food was just average but TOO expensive for the quality. If you can avoid this place due it. 10 minutes away you have much better options and...