Cool Hand Luke's — Restaurant in Paso Robles

Tonight, valentines day 2021, we chose to support a local business and order to-go from Cool Hand Lukes in Paso Robles at 5:30pm. We received a confirmation email stating our food would be ready by 6:30pm. Upon arrival, we could see they were very busy, so we thought the to-go order was probably the right call. We were informed by the front desk that our order "was never confirmed" and that she would now confirm it to begin the order process. After which, she told us our order would be ready in 1 hour, about 7:30pm. This wasn't great news, but there isn't any choice but to wait since we already had paid for the food. At 7:30 I chose to call and inquire about the status of our order as I did not want to drive down there again and be turned away. I was quickly transfered to the manager solely by the wishes of the lady answering phones. She told me "he has a better plan for your order." The manager answered the phone seemingly annoyed that I had called. I simply asked what the status of our order was so I can know when to come pick it up. He replied they are doing the best we can and there is nothing else they can do. (That is not an answer to my question) I understand though he is very stressed. Eventually, he told me there were still 3 people in front of us, and it would be at least an additional 25 minutes. I waited 40 minutes, and still did not receive any information on our order, so I chose to drive down there and check on it in person. I arrived at 8:20. Nearly 3 hours from the time our order was placed. Our food was cold, ready to-go, but missing the beverages. This was our first and probably our last experience with Cool Hand Luke's. We waited nearly 3 hours for a to-go order that ended up over priced, soggy and cold. No apology was ever given.

I understand customer service, especially the food service, is a high stress job and often is underappreciated. But at some point, you have to be able to learn how to be more efficient and organized in order to limit the amount of poor experiences for your customers. Yes, there will always be those customers that are just unhappy, and there is nothing you can seem to do to make them happy. But there are plenty of customers that simply want transparency and communication as to when their food will be ready. They missed the mark on that tonight. They clearly were not prepared for how busy they were, and were not successful in making the necessary adjustments to manage their staff and customers effectively.

Sorry Cool Hand Luke's I hope you learn from tonight and improve...

tl;dr : The Dry Rub ribs are trash, it's just black pepper and very light at that. Also excessively slow and poor service. Timing so bad Bread & Beans, Apps, Salads and Entree's all came to the table within 3 minutes of each other.

3rd visit, only can when I'm in town and its gone down every time from Great to this garbage. Just a poor experience and the blame lay solely on the Manager and Owners, not the Staff. Responsible Owners/Manager notify guests during "check-in", either verbally or by signage that every business would have or be able to create on short notice by now, that there is a shift staffing shortage and to possibly reschedule their visit. Anything to provide the customer a choice in waiting for possibly unreasonable amounts of time or receiving sub-par service.

Sunday the 29th @4:30pm arrival. Zero guests waiting and as far as I could tell there were only about 3 tables seated and 2 guests in the bar area. There was an angry sounding and postured guest at the hostess counter when we arrived but she was a current customer whom I did not know why they were angry but I found out first hand why later. The hostess had the speed of a statue and was very "head in the clouds" type. She just seemed very confused in general, and we were just a 3 top asking to be seated.

We were told it would be 5-10 minutes to be seated it turned out to be 15. Again, no other customers waiting and only one employee that I could see was the only one running any food. And they weren't dressed like front of house staff so I think they were just filling a gap in the moment. Hostess took our drink orders then disappeared, and we waited.............and waited. Approximately 10 more minutes pass and hostess returns with waters. Shortly after a waitress walked by and exclaimed she didn't know we were there, noone told her and that she would be right back. A solid 10 minutes later the waitress was back with another round of waters even though they were there the first time.

The entire rest of the experience was poor except the waitress. She was nice and did whatever she was able to with the short staffing. Timing of the food was horrible. It was exactly 1 hour from Speaking to the Hostess to getting an App or Bread (they showed up at the same time). Just an excusable experience. Will have to wait for new ownership signs to go up...

I never write these posts. Was their last night and had the worst service. Sat in the bar area. I'm not a hard person to please. I get in and get out. Never ask for much except simple service. Ordered a alcoholic beverage first and never got it. 👍. Ordered the prime rib, was asked if i would like soup or salad. I said salad. 5 minutes later, soup came. I pushed it aside. No worries. Still didn't get my drink. Then asked for water. Waited..... got my prime rib about 10mins later. Prime was ok. I knew what to expect. Overly fatty but ok. That's what I wanted. Still didn't get anything to drink. Asked for water again. Waitress realizes I got soup and said I'll get you a salad. I said I didn't want it. She was surprised. I then finished my 7oz of edible prime rib out of the 16oz I paid for. Went up to the bar and asked for a check. Sat down. Waited. Waitress actually comes by and then I ask her. She promptly gets a check for me. I gave her my CC and she goes and clears a table then runs my CC. Still didn't get a drink.... I really wanted to give her no tip but I find it hard to not pay someone even though I feel like she didn't deserve it. I usually overpay because I was In the service industry for 16yrs of my life. I gave her 6 dollars on 45. I literally felt bad but I left that place still hungry and thirsty. Wouldn't recommend sitting in the bar area cause certain servers can't handle it. Maybe sitting in the dining area would've been better. IDK... NOT GOING BACK...