Tropics Island Grill & Ale House — Restaurant in Placerville

Service was absolutely phenomenal! Our waitress had come back to ask how everything was and we were honest. Said we loved it all but the pulled pork was a bit bland. We ordered two of the Hawaiian Mixed Plates so we could each pick two different meats, allowing us to try four. The portions were definitely more than plentiful to share. Anyways, back to my story. The food wasn’t bland, like leave a bad review kind of bland, it was just the lesser favorite of all the others. But that wasn’t what made our day. Our waitress shared my remark with the cook, and he came out and was like, “Yeah, I just tasted it. It wasn’t our best and I’m sorry.” They gave us the same sauce that goes on the beef and it was perfect. But it was the simple fact that he took the time to come out, acknowledge the issue and apologize. Truly, just looking at the photos you can see that everything looked flavorful compared to the pulled pork, but still, was a fantastic meal.

Here’s how we ended up here. We often visit Boa Vista early in the morning and then wait to have lunch. Except lunch wasn’t starting until 11am. It was 9:30am and we were ready for food. lol So I searched lunch near me. We chose this place based on the photos, which is why I felt inclined to share my own. People deserve to see this beauty. It was one of the very few places that was open with a hearty meal, close to Boa Vista. 10/10 would recommend again. The only negative I had, was that I couldn’t do a Facebook check in to share with everyone this hidden gem I had found. You can check in now, I added it. Us older folks who don’t live on IG need to know where to find this place. lol I also think the Facebook name could use a little altering. The Facebook name says “Tropics Ale House Apple Hill.” If I didn’t take the time to look through photos, I’d assume this was a pub and not a restaurant. Since I’m not a beer drinker, we would have passed this up. I think leaving out “Island Grill” takes away from what made this place truly unique for us.

Loved it....

Here's the really sad thing about this restaurant. The reason for the bad service star is because they are absolutely pathetic when it comes to service. That is actually the easiest and most inexpensive thing to fix. The food is delightful the atmosphere random crap playing on the televisions and sometimes the music too loud. Staff likes to stand around and talk about their personal lives. Cook likes to sit at the end of the bar. Every chance he gets. Doesn't give the Customer/public a good impression that the staff actually wants to work. I don't really care that everybody has different colored hair. Even one of the cooks walks in with a mohawk, but it's their laxadaisy attitude they have about interacting with customers. They will stand at the counter, talking about their personal life before they even greet you. Then the "big girl" looks at you and asks how many in your party and then haphazardly says "anywhere " as she looks away. Most of the items we order on the menu actually are large and portion and good flavor. The sad part is that we are locals and we really don't go here because of this interaction. We actually called the place "gas station restaurant". Time to step up your game guys things are getting expensive and people are eating out less and less if you want to keep the business and stay in business you better change your staff attitude. We sure do miss the barbecue place. They were delightful and packed most of the time we went there. This restaurant hardly ever has anybody in it and it's probably for the very reason reasons I said. It's centrally located so there would be no reason why people wouldn't frequent it unless they just don't wanna deal with the...

I was honestly sad to see the BBQ place that used to be here close down, but I gotta say this new Hawaiian food place that replaced it is really good! We had the pulled pork sandwich and a two plate chicken & steak teriyaki (both pictured). The fries that came with the sandwich were crispy and well seasoned. The pork was juicy and full of flavor. The sandwich was huge! It also came with homemade ketchup which was nice. The two plate teriyaki was huge. Came with two scoops of rice and a very tasty macaroni salad. Portions here are generous and the food is super delicious. They put straw all over their umbrellas outside to make it feel like Hawaii. It was a nice touch.

Definitely worth a stop if you’re in the area or coming back from Tahoe. I do have to say it is a difficult location to get to and is not easy to see from the highway. Maybe that’s why restaurants tend to not last long here. Hopefully this one...