The Roost — Restaurant in Sacramento

I want to start by saying that the drinks at The Roost were absolutely amazing. As someone who’s a huge fan of speakeasies and well-crafted cocktails, I had been trying to visit this place for quite some time without success. The group I was with was too large to make a reservation online, but the host that night was incredible. His customer service was top-notch—he went above and beyond to help us secure a table. I wish I had caught his name because he truly set the tone for a great start to the evening.

Unfortunately, that’s where the good experience ended. Once we were seated, things took a sharp turn for the worse. Our server was, hands down, the worst I’ve ever encountered. From the very moment he approached our table, his attitude was condescending. He cut off the women in our group mid-sentence while they were trying to order, and even tried to correct one of my party members about the drink she wanted—telling her she wouldn’t like it because “it’s not sweet.” Ironically, she doesn’t like sweet drinks and happens to be a highly skilled, professionally trained mixologist herself. The list of his missteps goes on, but his lack of tact and poor table-side manners made it clear he should not be in this line of work.

It’s beyond frustrating because everything else about The Roost was amazing, and I had been looking forward to visiting for so long. One person’s wildly unacceptable behavior ended up casting a shadow over an otherwise great experience. I’ll chalk it up to a rough night for him, but as someone who has worked in the service industry, there’s a baseline standard of professionalism that was entirely missed here. It’s a real shame because I wanted to...

We had a reservation for 6:45pm and we prepaid $60 to hold it. They guarantee a 2hr reservation, which in this case would be till 8:45pm. At 4:30pm I called them and asked them if we could move our reservation to 7:30pm as we had some car trouble and they said yes no worries. We got there at 7:30pm. We ordered some food at 7:45pm and they said we can’t serve you food as you have to leave at 8:15pm and it takes us 20-30 mins to serve food. We said well we have a two hour reservation and the bar is empty (it was 30% empty at the time) and they said sorry we can’t serve you anything else. So even though we prepaid $60 for two hours we were rudely kicked out in 45 mins with only time to have one drink. 7:30pm-8:15pm. When we were leaving the manager came to apologize and offered to refund the $60. Mentioning this experience as they had enough opportunity to just honor our reservation but during the short time we were there 3 different people said “let me check” … and then would come back and say we had to leave … even when 12 other seats were vacant near us. My take is that this bar is trying to create a feeling of exclusivity, which is not a bad thing, but they haven’t yet figured out how to actually deliver on it. So it just comes across as fake and pretentious where the focus is on creating a facade rather than customer service. I had decided to try out this bar based on the reviews. So for folks who have been to other “speak easy” places in other cities around the world, just a heads up that it’s not really that kind of place. Other than the gimmicky “hidden” entrance; you easily see once you are in that it’s just a...

I love speakeasy bars and have been a few in different cities. This is my first time visiting The Roost in Sacramento. I won't spoil the entrance for you and will just say - it was fun.

We got here at 5:00 pm on Saturday without reservation. We figured it's still early enough that we should be able to get a table/seat. We were seated at the bar right away and I was just captivated by the magnificent bar with at least 200+ bottles. It really set a nice vibe for the place. We took our time with the menu. There are so many cocktails to pick from, and if you still don't find what you want, the bartender can make something off the menu by your preferences. Here's what we had.

Cosmopolitan Oldie but a goodie. For the longest time, this was my go-to cocktail. It's not a difficult drink to make, but you can screw it up if the portions are off. It was perfect and delicious!

Naked and Famous Best cocktail names there is with Mezcal, Chartreuse, Aperol and fresh lime juice. It's got a really strong flavor and incredibly fruity. Yum!

Tranquility This was off menu based on preference. It's similar to Equanimity but replace Scotch with Tequila with variety of flavors, including sweet, bitter and citrus. A refreshing and slightly tart cocktail. Perfect for the summer!

Karaage We didn't want to drink on an empty stomach. The karaage was perfect, deep-fried lightly with dipping sauce. They also have few other food items on the menu - raw oysters, cheese plate and olives.

If you enjoy a well crafted cocktails, you must try The Roost. It was a fun night and will...