Humble Sea Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Pacifica

Very good selection of tasty brews and my wife enjoyed the cider option. The Hefe was not as good as a true German, bottle conditioned hefeweizen but darn good for a US interpretation. The London Brown was more bitter than I expected but the overall flavor was good. I like porters so it was fine for me but someone expecting a Newcastle style might find it too bitter. I ordered the chicken sandwich with a side salad. The sandwich was fine, above average in fact. The salad was surprisingly good. All the greens were very fresh and the add-ins were far above what one would expect for this price point. The salad just by itself would be a $12 item at a mid level spot in San Mateo. That makes the sandwich entree with salad upgrade an excellent deal IMO. My wife had the fish n chips. But instead of chips, they served tater tots. I was skeptical but these weren't the tots you remember from high school. These were very crispy, creamy inside and addictive with top notch aioli for dipping. The fish was very crispy and cooked perfectly. The service model is order and pay via app. Food and drink are delivered to the table by friendly staff but it's still a departure from the norm. I suspect we'll see more and more establishments do this to save on labor. Not a problem for us but some might not like it. Overall a good experience and the limited options were an excellent value relative to most Bay area dining. I appreciate the TVs showing the games but not hearing loud sports announcers unless it's a big event like World Seri. Music is preferable to that. However, the music was a problem. It kept starting and stopping halfway through a song. There would be complete silence for five minutes or so then part of another song. Maybe something was malfunctioning? I can understand that to some degree but the music being played was totally inappropriate for the atmosphere. It's a pub restaurant not a dance club. Why not blues or jazz or yacht rock or Calypso or roots reggae? There are so many options that would work there. Music is a highly subjective thing, I get it. But some genres are simply too harsh for a pub such as this. Most people will be turned off by rap, hip hop, heavy metal, opera and many others, even if they like those genres in other settings. I hope ownership reads this and puts some thought into the importance of atmosphere and directs employees on what's allowed. I'd like to keep going back. Something light, pleasant and mellow to hear in the background would be appropriate for this establishment. We'll go back and try it again because so much of it was good. But if we go and hear harsh music again, we'll have to cross Humble Sea off of our local dining...

We visit brewery's across the country. All in all, this is one that I would like to try out other locations.

My experience wasn't the best, but it was not the worst.

We entered and signs tell you to sit, there are more "signs how to order etc on table", as a newbie, this is not in my opinion customer friendly. But hey, technology apparently has hit this franchise. We try to order, but the menu is not very customer savvy. I couldn't help but get up and ask questions (especially since 5 of them were standing around, clearly doing nothing but just visiting each other).

Sure, it's probably a good idea to greet your customers coming in, say hi, or hey, we have this system - but I'm not the owner. Either way, i try asking questions (got offended when the one lady, referred to my husband as the kid?) Ummmmm lady, he's in his 30s and there wasn't a crowd of people in the location for you to miss that we walked in together. Was there a kid in the establishment, sure - one. But they had food and drinks already, so....... Again , it is not customer friendly, or you just are not paying attention to who you may or may not be serving.

Either way, I didn't take that much offense and moved to my questions from beers to food. I was given a recommendation, although the lady and gentleman seemed to want to talk over each other, or either did not know how to interact with out of towners, but hey, again, I am not the owner.

We used their online system and ordered. Beer was brought immediately. We got food soon after.

Beer - we had 2 different ones and enjoyed them both. Def decent IPAs. (Are there 20 on tap??? As it states online , well, that's another story. Their Beer tabs (were all white) and had labels on the walls. Not the typical IPA logos were used to see at Brewery's. But maybe it's newer and hasn't been established?

Food - tots were edible, and we would have been happier if we had just ordered those. Burgers 🍔 - if you like grease, sure, but we are not, and it was rough to eat half of it.

Sauce - I asked for Ranch (again, it's probably safe to tell your customers it's not traditional ranch.) This one had a kick to it, not bad, but it wasn't what I asked for. Maybe a Sriracha or aioli was added? Did we eat some of it? Yes. It was tasty.

Like I said before, we intend on visiting another location. Did we like this one, As a whole: 5/10

Service 1/10 beer 8/10 food 4/10 Location 8/10

**Dog...

TL;DR: Go for the beer, stay for the tots.

Cute space in the middle of strange strip mall, it is sandwiched between a Grocery Outlet and an OrangeTheory. They have both indoor and outdoor spaces, I did notice that dogs and children were mostly sitting outside. Service was through a QR code, the kitchen was pretty backed up with every table ordering at least one item but they were not too slow.

Their menu was mainly beer (variations of IPAs and a few other options), with one fruited sour and a few wines on tap. I liked my fruited sour (Neon Pineapple) and even one of the IPAs I tried (I'm not big on beer in general). Definitely explains their popularity since everything was pretty good!

However, I would definitely recommend the tots. We got a single order, but you can also get them with a burger or fish & tots. The fish & tots came with a mountain of these little potato nuggets so if that's your jam, it seems like a good platter to share. The seasoned salt on the tots can be left off if that's your preference, it seemed heavy on the cayenne and paprika and got a bit much for me after a while. They were super crispy, not too greasy, and a delicious accompaniment to the drinks. They seem to use fancy ketchup (it didn't really taste like Heinz), but I couldn't taste the hops in the hops aioli.

I hadn't realized before arriving that Humble Sea has multiple locations (Pacifica, Santa Cruz, Alameda, etc). I can't speak for the locations other than Pacifica but would like to check the rest out if I'm ever...