Brewsters Beer Garden — Restaurant in Petaluma

Last night (Sat) we had a group of 8 with a table reservation under the canopy.

I will start with the Pros. The only reasons this is not a one star review. The service was acceptable. And they are equipped with a good system for check splitting. They also did not seem to mind that our small plate and burger orders trickled in over the two hours we were there.

The Cons. While they were busy. It was nothing that a place of this type should not expect on any nice weekend night. Petaluma had their small town festival that day and I'm sure it had been busy. But when we arrived at 8 for out table reservation I would estimate seating was at about 80% capacity. The first very glaring issue was the absolutely disgusting condition of the bathroom. Both were ery wet on the floor. Huge amounts of toilet paper and other filth on the floor. A female of our party reported the the women's bathroom had drinks on the floor and bandage debris.

We reported this issue to out server and asked that the on duty manager be notified. We sat in view of the bathroom and in the following two hours that we were there not one member of staff was seen entering the bathroom, much less making any attempt to clean.

In the words of a dear friend that has worked in the restaurant business for a very long time, "if they can't pay attention to their bathrooms, you don't want to see what is going on in their kitchen".

I also want to me tenting that a cocktail I ordered received an Un requested upgrade to mid-shelf liquor, for which I was charged. I didn't ask for a refund because I chose to drink the cocktail. Bit this is shady practice.

While we are on the subject of the bar, we witnessed several patrons who were well beyond the obvious point of needing to be flagged, served several more drinks. The management should consider better training in this area before their license is endangered.

Lastly, and the reason that we moved on and spent the remainder of our money for the night elsewhere. On a warm evening there us no reason for very large overhead heaters to be turned on full blast without request. The heater over us served only our table and at 9 was turned on to "inferno". It took 15 min to get someone's attention to turn it off, and by that time we were all so uncomfortably hot that we decided to move on.

The food was edible, but over priced for what it is. At best mid...

So I went Saturday night, 12/21/24. Atmosphere was spectacular. All the patrons were super festive and having a good vibe. But there were two staff members in particular that were not good vibes.. I was in a party of 7, and I brought my two super chill dogs. All the patrons we sat around were super chill about my dogs being there and asking if they could pet the em and I moved them to chill on spots that were out of the patrons way. But one staff member in particular, who i found out later was the owner (white dude in his 50s) was rude to me and told me my dogs were in the way. I forget how he said it exactly but he was definitely not polite nor professional, so much so that I wouldn’t have expected it to be the owner.. anyways, he acted like a dousche. But I put my dogs under the table after the weird interaction and continued to enjoy my night in good company and with good energy of the other patrons. Maybe 10 patrons came up to me during the 2 hours we were sitting to ask if they could pet my dogs…again, my dogs were chillen and out of everyone way.. so I wasn’t there for this part of the situation but I guess a few other people in my party were dissatisfied with the service from our waitress. I didn’t notice as I was enjoying my time in the other side of the party in good company .. but I did have to go to the counter to ask for side plates and napkins after our appetizers arrived.

Anyways, I guess the waitress asked us to wrap it up after 2 hours because the reservation was only for two hours even though it was 9:30 at this point and the amount empty seats all around the restaurant were continued to open up, so it definitely was getting less crowded.. and then as 3 people in the new party next to us were joyfully petting ny my dogs and talking about their own dogs at home, how they should’ve brought them too if they were as good as mine were, The same disgruntled middle aged white dude (who again I guess happened to be the owner) said something about my dogs being in the way, but then when he realized that no one was paying attention to him because again, they were enjoying petting my dogs, he awkwardly walked away … so ya food was sub par, atmosphere was excellent , most bar backs and busters were cool, just the middle aged white owner and I suppose the waitress (though I didn’t see that part) were indeed super lame...

*based on visiting during the holiday pop up event

First, reservations don’t really mean anything. You probably need to make one, but don’t expect it means you’ll get a decent or private table. We went on a weekday at 2:30- so should’ve been a relatively chill time compared to afternoon or weekend. We had a reservation for 2. We were just added on to another table with people already there… even though there were tons of other empty tables. It didn’t seem that packed, but definitely understaffed for how big the space is. I asked our host if we could move, she said she’d see and of course never came back. Then when the people we got sat at a table with were done eating, no one ever came to clean their stuff, so we were just sitting at a dirty table. It took 20 min for someone to come acknowledge us.

We thought about leaving but have had the drinks here before and they’re good so we decided to just immediately order a couple drinks. I asked my server, since the host never came back, about the seating. We were mostly just wondering if we could move to the bar, but she said no with an unclear reason. She was unnecessarily rude, when I reasonably asked about why we were sat at a dirty table with other people when we made a reservation. As someone who has worked in restaurants as a host.. that’s not what a reservation typically means.. nobody expects that when they make a “reservation”.. come on.

It’s a huge space, so I can see that it’s hard for staff to cover all tables. Maybe don’t overwork your staff so they aren’t so grumpy? And warn people that their “reservations” just equal being sat at ANY open table, even if it’s already taken and dirty.

On a positive note, drinks were good. I would just recommend lowering expectations and being prepared for poor, slow service, which is maybe worth the drinks and atmosphere for some people. Probably not worth it for others. We also had to ask someone to help us pay the bill because after ordering drinks our server just...