Vue Kitchen — Restaurant in Point Arena

My wife and I just stopped in here around opening time. The hostess asked us if we were coming in for dinner and we told her we just wanted to have a quick drink (we were planning to watch the sunset). The hostess told us that because of current county health restrictions the bar was closed and that they could only seat people if they were having dinner. I told we didn’t mind sitting on the patio and didn’t need to be at the bar but she insisted that they couldn’t serve us only drinks. The atmosphere looked very nice and we really wanted to sit out and enjoy the sunset, so I suggested to my wife that we could maybe have an appetizer or small plate (we had dinner plans with friend), but the hostess interjected and told us that we would have be ordering ‘full meals’ or they weren’t allowed to serve us. We left.

So here’s the thing, I come from a family business. 44 years in customer service and I know what a struggle it’s been for so many businesses over the last year and with that said I don’t take pleasure in leaving anyone a bad review. However, from an ownership perspective this is absolutely appalling customer treatment and I don’t know if that’s indicative of poor training or bad policy making but it should be addressed either way. I checked the county health rules after we were turned away and perhaps I am wrong but it appears that restaurants serving drinks without food are presently permitted to have limited seating outside, and same for bars without food. Maybe I am missing something here but it seems to me that we were just blatantly lied to and refused service for no good reason. Maybe this place is trying to save limited seating for people who are going to have dinner and thus spend more money (a dumb policy if that’s the case), but even if that’s the case, then train your staff to at least come up with a plausible reason for not seating us: ‘we are so sorry but we are expecting aren’t taking walk-ins’...or better yet ‘we’ll be happy to seat you but we have to make dinner tables available within half an hour so we want to make sure that will work for you’...anything would be more reasonable than what we just experienced.

Again, maybe I am wrong and there is some weird and obscure restriction here right now that I don’t know about, but I somehow doubt it. I’ll also say that coming from a family business I know how hard so many establishments work to maintain a reputation and so I am not a big fan of review sites (e.g. Yelp should be wiped from the face of the earth) and I don’t think I have ever given a one star review in the limited times I have rated an establishment. But sometimes ownership needs to be made aware of something which happened that is totally unacceptable, and that is what just happened to us, so here you go. I hope this will be seen, addressed and corrected. Sadly though, I doubt we will...

Great location and view right above the mouth of the Gualala River. We visited on a Thursday night around 730. We were seated quickly and the service went downhill from there. While one server offered us water frequently (which was appreciated) the server who took our order and brought our food was gone for long periods. The beer came late in the meal, she never checked in with us after the entrees came, she was just absent. The food was just plain overpriced. We paid $48 for an OK 14oz ribeye that was supposed to come with risotto and green beans and showed up with no green beans and had fried eggplant instead??? Nobody wants that and our server said nothing. What a bizarre and unwelcome substitute. Our $18 burger and fries was perfectly cooked but we ordered cheddar and got Jack and there was nothing by way of condiments on the bun and our server never bothered to check on us so I could’ve requested condiments. I made do with the tiny bit of ketchup that came with the excellent fries. The burger buns themselves were excellent and well up to the task of standing up to a very juicy burger but were still soft. I assume covid was the reason for no salt/pepper or bottles of condiments they might usually have offered at the table? All in all, we have no reason to go back here. We paid well over $100 for two burgers and a steak and deserved better service. We appreciate good service and tip very well for it but it was missing during our visit. Our server was very, very friendly just not on her game. I’d like to give 2.5 stars. Had the service been spot on I’d...

I went in excited for a nice meal but was not impressed with what I received.

The crab cakes tasted overwhelmingly herby and were served with what I'm 90% sure was chimichurri sauce. You could not taste the crab at all. Clam chowder was served lukewarm with semi-stale, untoasted bread. There were a surprising amount of carrots in the chowder. My husband ordered the flat iron steak and was equally unimpressed. His steak and fries were severely lacking in salt, and we could not find the waitress in time to request the salt before the meal was cold. The steak was surprisingly small (we estimate around 6oz) for the price of the entree. We thoughts the fries would be tossed in the cotija, but instead there was just a small sprinkling of the cheese on top.

Tiramisu cake was dry and not very flavorful. The creme brulee cheesecake was tasty for a cheesecake, but there was nothing creme brulee about it. Just call it cheesecake if it's a regular cheesecake. My $12 well rum mojito was just okay. Tasted fairly weak, and the mint was not forward enough for my liking.

Service was not on par with the price of the meal. We had to flag the waitress down anytime we needed something, including for every refill of water. There seemed to be plenty of staff compared to the amount of tables, so I'm not sure why she was difficult to find. I understand many restaurants are short staffed right now, but you expect better service for a $100+ meal.

Overall, come for the "Vue" but not the "Kitchen." The sunset was beautiful. I just wish my...