Sammy G's Tuscan Grill — Restaurant in Palm Springs

I was recommended by a local friend to listen to live music and have a bite to eat at this place. I’m from Carlsbad so don’t have local knowledge of the restaurant scene in Palm Springs. I’ve been in the restaurant industry for 30 years so am very fair and not emotional about reviews. They have a well priced happy hour in the bar lounge area and live music so I planned on staying in the lounge and skip eating on their patio. The first issue was the majority of their lounge booths were reserved yet I was told it was first come first served the night before when I called to confirm when band started. Some restaurants offer a value on their portion sizes at happy hour reduced pricing over full priced dinner entree for exact item. This was not the case at this restaurant. They basically gave no value at a very small reduced portion sized items I ordered. The lamb chops were 1 ounce with no flavor, 4 for $12. 1 regular size bite per chop. A real embarrassment to even purchase this item and serve in the restaurant. The lasagna was decent flavor but also very small portion in comparison to the $8 price. I’ve been to Mama Gina in Palm Desert and their happy hour rocked and blew this place out of the water. The waitress had no interest in my displeasure when mentioned and made no attempt to summon the GM to smooth things out. A professional restaurant would’ve comped the item at the minimum. We ordered 2 of them so got burned twice. I’ve had small lollipop lamb chops before but never 1 ounce thin cut, 2 ounce medium cut is the norm. Probably $1 food cost per chop so no value at happy hour pricing. All the reserved booths sat empty until an hour after I arrived. Probably for the outdoor dinner menu patrons who wanted to listen to music later. The kicker was the band started late at 8:30 instead of 8:00 posted time. So basically a complete bust of an evening out for $60 with a couple of rounds of wine and beer. Really disappointed since my local friend recommended this place. Nice waitress but clueless on resolving my issue cost her my standard 20% tip by not having manager resolve my displeasure. Still tipped her 10% because I’m no cheapskate like many people are by taking out on the server completely. Nice place that could really be special if better value and service. The locals in the bar were drinking and not eating so they probably know better to not bother with the happy hour food. Live and learn not to order items out of the box, I’m sure burger or steak dinner would’ve been a better...

Sammy G’s was quite a fancy looking spot although when I went everything seemed to be in some defunct stage, waiting for parties later on. My guests were sat on a patio lined with cheesy St Patrick’s day decorations and I sipped on a “Blue Lady” while contemplating the cultural meaning of the giant blow-up rainbow flowing into a pot of gold lined with shamrocks, towering above our table. Surrounding us on all the lamp posts were tasteless metallic green four leaf clovers with confetti script cheering on the event. These symbols mean next to nothing to me or anyone else out here, nor is Sammy’s culturally related to the Irish whatsoever. It’s seems to be just weirdly branded nonsense reason to drink a lot at this point. Does anyone even know who Saint Patrick was?

For one, Saint Patrick wasn’t even named Patrick. His name was Maewyn Succat and he was a Christian missionary who brought religion to the Irish pagans. He effectively brainwashed a culture of beautiful pagan beliefs just as Christian missionaries did to most nearly every culture on this planet. And legend has it that he did so by teaching the Holy Trinity using a 3 leaf clover. Notice all the celebratory symbolism on this fake holiday represents 4 leaf clovers, leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold, all of which have nothing to do with the saint who eradicated these types of Irish myths and beliefs.

Seeing this beautiful Italian restaurant decorated with gaudy junk representing a bizarre holiday truly took away from the experience.

The pasta and pizzas offered gluten free options which was amazing. And when I was finished with the Blue Lady, I had the Red Lady. I recommend sticking with Blue.

I’ve always wondered why there isn’t an option to rate the drinks. There’s only the option to rate food. But they were decent, not the best.

Still, I’d come back for the...

We've been customers for 11 years and this is one of our favourite restaurants for Happy Hour in the bar. But last night we decided to have dinner in the bar and the entire experience was extremely disappointing. First off, we ordered their calamari which turned out to be disgusting. Right away i knew that it must have been previously frozen and past its expiry because it was too tough to eat. We had a couple of bites then sent it back after the server confirmed to me that yes, it was frozen . There was no apology at all. What happened to the good service they used to have? By the time the server came to take our order we had waited so long that we were just about to leave. Our server was completely miserable..no smile, no interest, nothing. He walked around looking like he would have been happier getting a root canal rather than working. He even cut my husband off while he was ordering his pizza and finished the sentence then walked away. Part of the enjoyment of going to dinner is the experience of having a great interaction with a server and other guests and ambiance but so much fell flat last night. Honestly it was by far the worst meal we've had in a long time. We both ordered pizza as our entrée, i had the Sam's Special and my husband had the chicken alfredo pizza. Mine lacked much flavour but it packed a punch later on because it woke me up in the night rushing to the bathroom. Goodbye pizza. Please fix the bad service and bad calamari! **edit.. I've not only had frequent trips to the bathroom, but also I've vomited twice today . Will absolutely NEVER again eat here. My...