Provisions — Restaurant in Oroville

Provisions has a ton, a TON of potential, to be great. But, they are missing some key things that would allow them to dominate the market here in Oroville - and maybe even draw in some customers from Chico and Marysville if they felt like being ambitious. The good news is that they have only been in business 3 years, so they have plenty of time to grow and improve.

Pros: Great location....easy to find, next to the river with plenty of parking across the street. Simple menu that's easy to read, good and fair pricing...they're not pretending to be something they're not. IOW...why put tacos on the menu at a burger joint? This place isn't doing that. Good selection of drinks on the cocktail menu. Good atmosphere that allows for movement - background music that you could hear, but not too loud that you have to scream to hear the people around you. **Key: Provisions does a good job of taking simple, every day items and "making something out of nothing" with them. Very creative with their fries on their appetizers....simple concepts that were fun. We could tell our dishes were made with care and concern, using fresh ingredients. Well done!

Cons: The service is in need of help...I have read multiple reviews that have specifically referenced this, and we noticed the same thing. So, it is time for ownership/management to take the necessary steps, be proactive, and remedy this very obvious problem. From the time we entered, it took 20 minutes for us to have a drink in our hands. This is unacceptable! To the management/ownership team, we were seated right next to the bar....just some feedback for you....your restaurant was packed, and there were TWO people running the joint! No wonder your service is slow! Your staff were visibly sweating from going nonstop. They laughed off our jokes about being so stressed out over their working conditions. They were so frantic that when they stopped and asked the usual questions about how we were doing, they did not have time to stick around for our answer....that's not on them....that's on management and ownership setting them up for failure. It was extremely rude, but not their fault. Getting to know your customers goes far beyond serving them quality food and a money exchange...a bar and a restaurant with a good business plan and a solid management plan would hire ample staffing that would allow ample time for servers to enjoy some conversation with their customers...that's half the reason the customers are coming in. Another con was that I ordered a cocktail that could not be made because they ran out of mint. This is also unacceptable! A restaurant/bar should NEVER run out of any ingredients....ever. If they want to control the restaurant market and bring customers in and retain them, the customers should rarely, if ever, hear the words "No, we can't do that." That was embarrassing. Small details are a big deal folks. Last Con is that my wife slipped as we entered the restaurants and almost fell because the floors were so wet because of the rainy weather. And yet, the staff still did not mop up the floors. We counted 4 total places throughout the restaurant and bar that are either trip or slip hazards and should be dealt with ASAP!...

Nice place to eat outside, food was overpriced for what you got. I had a BLT salad and it wasn't very good. Not many salad options. The burgers were great though. Service was hit and miss maybe because we were outside they forgot about us.

New review: Went back and gave it another try. With a party of five we were sat quickly. There was no wait. Earlier that day restaurant had posted that their oven was not working. And they had a limited menu. I had called prior to coming in to see if there was an update and it was fixed. After our waitress sat us, she gave us the menu and it took a long time for her to come back to get our drink order. We're finally able to put in our order and we needed to ask them questions but she took off too quick. After waiting quite a bit of time, our drinks came. And we let her know that we were ready to order. A couple of us had some questions about some items on the menu. And then she replies with. Oh yeah I guess I should have started with that our ovens down and we can't make these items. When when we walked in so that we could have made the decision on whether or not we wanted to continue and eat here. We were able to choose items that the restaurant could make. The food itself was great. But we didn't have silverware so we had to wait for her to come back and then again she would take off really quick before we were able to ask for napkins or something else. She got the order wrong on one of the parties. Meal. Did not come back around for refills or anything. Finally at the end she came back and we got boxes to go. It was not busy. There were maybe two other tables of parties of two. Again, the food was great. The service...

My friend and I had a girls night here on Friday night (July 28th) and you'd think that they'd have more staff for the restaurant but our poor waitr was running like a chicken with her head cut off, she was super sweet though. The bar tender made me an amazing drink that was actually made how I wanted it. However the two different appetizers I tried both sucked. The steak frits were cold, steak had none of the seasonings described on the menu (not even salt,) the fries where dry and soggy at the same time, the cheese you could tell was melted on by being pooped in the microwave, hense the fries being both dry and soggy. Yes I could have tried getting the waitress attention to send it back instead of once she came to give me my water; I just ordered the jalapeno artichoke dip, it probably would have been better if it wasn't cold and wasn't served with the weird burnt unsalted "house" chips. My friend order the fettuccine and shrimp; that also had no seasonings whatsoever not even butter, she kept trying to describe it to me that it just tasted like white winey of sorts. I realized what she's describing was uncooked off wine, like as if the cook just pulled the noodles out of the water into the pan with shrimps and pour bunch of wine in a long with it and sort of heated it up, didn't let it cook down or anything. The food wasn't worth the money at all but the atmosphere, drinks and two ladies running the show...