Cato's Ale House — Restaurant in Oakland

My husband and I have gone to the same pub, Cato's Ale House, on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, for the past four years. He had been going alone before that for six years. Weekly. He's built up great relationships with several of the bartenders and wait staff.

Tonight, we went to the pub and my husband ordered a Sless Oatmeal Stout from Jeff, the general manager, but instead got a different drink - same price, but stronger and a smaller quantity. He mentioned this politely to Jeff, who blew him off and started serving other people. At the end of the evening, my husband politely mentioned again to Jeff that he was a bit disappointed that he'd got the wrong drink and then been blown off. Also he'd been overcharged by a dollar.

Jeff said "What do you want?" My husband replied that he'd like to pay for what he'd been served. "So what do you want?" "Well, I'd like to pay the $13 the drinks were priced rather than the $14 you charged me." Jeff then banned him for three months, saying that he was rude and demanding and cold towards him and other staff members.

So he was served the wrong drink and then banned for three months when he politely pointed that out.

My husband never even raised his voice. He even said "Thank you" in response, since he now knows how management likes to treat its customers - even its regulars - if they step out of line or dare to question Jeff's mistakes. We calmly walked out.

For the record, we'd been disappointed with Jeff for months, since he serves people in the wrong order (usually the female customers first), and spends time chatting or drinking when there are people waiting to get drinks. We hadn't said anything before, but felt that tonight might be a good opportunity to politely mention something.

It's such a shame since all the other staff members BAR NONE are wonderful, amazing folks with whom we've built up relationships and memories over the years. But now we will be finding somewhere else to take our weekly business, at least until...

I wanted to love this place and have a good time. But I don't know why they don't train staff anymore. I was there for trivia night with friends. I wanted to order a beer and the bartender totally ignores me and serves three groups before me. I even stood in front of her after the second group, holding my credit card, more or less staring at her. After finishing serving the group of 4, she doesn't even acknowledge me and walks across to the other end of the bar to serve another couple who wanted to sample a bunch of beers. I yelled out, "excuse me, I was here first, and you've already served two other groups in front of me." She walks half way to me to acknowledge that she was sorry and didn't see me. I was immediately sheepish, and ready to apologize for my outburst, because I had to be loud enough to be heard across the whole bar, and was fully expecting to be served, but instead, she proceeds to spin180 and continued to finish with the other couple, who was sampling multiple beers, and without even letting me know that she is will be right with me. At this point, I left the bar to chill out. When I came back, she had been by the table to try and take my order. My wife kindly apologized for me. When I did finally get my beer, which I fully expected to be comped, because we were there for game night, and would be ordering several more beers and food. I found this experience fully humiliating and unacceptable. I felt like this business does not care about it's clientele, or maybe just don't know how to train employees to retain customers. but I will never go back and will keep telling this story because I was so upset by it. Thank you for ruining my night and my love for a...

Came here just last week and it was great.

Such a chilled out place with its own character and feel. Wooden hipster kind of place without being dirty and loud. Low dim lights and small tables tucked in all corners make it ideal for a date night.

First come first seated kind of rules so come early around 7pm or bit later after 9pm to easily get a table. We came around 8:30pm and most of the tables were taken so we chilled by the bar having couple of beers on tap and in about 15-20 min we got a table for four. Definitely easier to find table for 2 :)

Service is friendly. Food is really good with all sorts of options from salads, sandwiches, pizzas, burger and so on. Good options for vegetarian people as well.

Between the four of us we ordered: -Margarita Pizza full pie shared by 2. Too big to finish. Darn tasty and cheesy! Lebanese chicken sandwich - our friends said was good Crab burger - our friends said it outshined the chicken sandwich and was tasty.

Beers were great. They even had Pliny the Elder on tap that Thursday and it was available throughout the night woohoo!

We felt comfortable, welcomed and totally at home. That earns 5 stars in my book. Can't wait to be back to try more...